Disinformation about the November 2020 elections saw a 73% reduction in the week after multiple social media companies deplatformed Donald Trump, who had been a leading source of false information, the Washington Post reports.

The number of conversations or threads spreading disinformation fell from 2.5 million to 688,000 in the week before Trump’s expulsion from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other platforms, a study from a San Francisco-based analytics firm Zignal showed.

Twitter also took further steps to ban more than 70,000 accounts connected to the January 6th insurrectionist attack on the Capitol, particularly those spreading disinformation associated with the QAnon conspiracy theory. 

“Together, those actions will likely significantly reduce the amount of online misinformation in the near term,” said Kate Starbird, disinformation researcher at the University of Washington. “What happens in the long term is still up in the air.”

The study found that thousands of accounts automatically retweeted Trump’s posts, regardless of the subject, adding to the conservative echo chamber.  This amplification of Trump’s message led to adoption with question among his followers.  Removing Trump as the source meant that the echo chamber fell mostly silent.

“Bottom line is that de-platforming, especially at the scale that occurred last week, rapidly curbs momentum and ability to reach new audiences,” said Graham Brookie, director of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, which tracks misinformation. “That said, it also has the tendency to harden the views of those already engaged in the spread of that type of false information.”