Deana A. Rohlinger, Ph.D., is a Professor of Sociology at Florida State University. She authored the article “Does the Musk Twitter Takeover Matter? Political Influencers, Their Arguments, and the Quality of Information They Share.” The following summary was written by FSU student Zachary Winiecki (M.S. Media and Communication Studies ‘23).
Florida State University Professor of Sociology Deana A. Rohlinger, Ph.D., along with FSU Ph.D. candidate in Sociology Kyle Rose, Sarah Warren, and Stuart Shulman, Ph.D., co-authored the article, “Does the Musk Twitter Takeover Matter? Political Influencers, Their Arguments, and the Quality of Information They Share,” to investigate if permanently suspending accounts on Twitter, since rebranded as X, improved the information circulating about important political issues.
To examine this, Dr. Rohlinger analyzed information that circulated on Twitter about the Maricopa County, Arizona presidential ballot audit after the 2020 United States presidential election. Ultimately, she found that permanently suspending accounts on Twitter did not lead to an improvement of information.
“This research shows that interventions designed to improve information on social media platforms such as Twitter do not always work as expected and that we need more research on what interventions like bans do – and do not – accomplish,” Dr. Rohlinger said. “It also underscores the need to assess the effects of the Musk Twitter takeover carefully. There was a lot we didn’t know about Twitter and the effectiveness of its interventions in the information environment. So, before we wax nostalgic about Twitter of yore, we need to make sure we understand how well interventions like de-platforming worked.”
Following the 2020 presidential election, there were a variety of Twitter accounts calling for audits of ballots in states that Donald Trump lost. On July 27th, 2021, many of those accounts were suspended for violating the platform’s policies on manipulation and spam.
The study looked at who was sending the most tweets referencing the Arizona audit specifically, who was being retweeted most often, the kinds of arguments they made, and the quality of information they shared before the day of, and the day after the accounts were banned. The accounts of political influencers and accounts with high tweet volume and low follower totals were analyzed.
Rohlinger first used software called DiscoverText to collect and analyze 245,020 tweets from 200 accounts. The Ad Fontes Media Bias Chart helped categorize the quality of information from these accounts. Bot Sentinel software was then able to assess whether their tweeting behavior was disruptive or problematic.
The data for this study was collected prior to Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter. Thus, Dr. Rohlinger believes the next phase of research is to systematically assess whether (and how) the information environment on Twitter has changed since the Musk’s takeover. Another avenue of research she thinks is worth exploring is if there are similar results with other political issues.
The study was featured by the American Sociological Association, that also produced a podcast about the topic with Dr. Rohlinger. Listen to the podcast here.
To learn more about Dr. Rohlinger and her work, click here, or to learn more about the Department of Sociology, click here.
Rohlinger, D. A., Rose, K., Warren, S., & Shulman, S. (2023). Does the Musk Twitter Takeover Matter? Political Influencers, Their Arguments, and the Quality of Information They Share. Socius, 9. https://doi.org/10.1177/23780231231152193