Understanding the Effect of Deplatforming on Social Networks

Aiming to enhance the safety of their users, social media platforms enforce terms of service by performing active moderation, including removing content or suspending users. Nevertheless, we do not have a clear understanding of how effective it is, ultimately, to suspend users who engage in toxic behavior, as that might actually draw users to alternative platforms where moderation is laxer. Moreover, this deplatforming efforts might end up nudging abusive users towards more extreme ideologies and potential radicalization risks. In this paper, we set to understand what happens when users get suspended on a social platform and move to an alternative one. We focus on accounts active on Gab that were suspended from Twitter and Reddit. We develop a method to identify accounts belonging to the same person on these platforms, and observe whether there was a measurable difference in the activity and toxicity of these accounts after suspension. We find that users who get banned on Twitter/Reddit exhibit an increased level of activity and toxicity on Gab, although the audience they potentially reach decreases. Overall, we argue that moderation efforts should go beyond ensuring the safety of users on a single platform, taking into account the potential adverse effects of banning users on major platforms.