top of page

Kelly Sikkema / Unsplash
Declining information quality under new platform governance
Burak Özturan, Alexi Quintana-Mathé, Nir Grinberg, Katherine Ognyanova, David Lazer
Journal Article
|
July 11, 2025
Following the leadership transition on October 27, 2022, Twitter/X underwent a notable change in platform governance. This study investigates how these changes influenced information quality for registered U.S. voters and the platform more broadly. We address this question by analyzing two complementary datasets—a Twitter panel and a Decahose sample. Our findings reveal a subtle yet statistically significant decline in information quality across both datasets, stemming from an increase in content from low-quality sources and a decrease in content from high-quality sources. These results suggest that the ownership change and subsequent policy adjustments were associated with shifts in the platform’s information ecosystem. Our results underscore the broader significance of ownership and governance for information quality in dynamic sociotechnical systems, highlighting the determinantal power that platform owners may have in shaping the information ecosystem.
citation
Özturan, B., Quintana-Mathé, A., Grinberg, N., Ognyanova, K., & Lazer, D. (2025). Declining information quality under new platform governance. Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Misinformation Review. https://doi.org/10.37016/mr-2020-176
topics
Social Media
Artificial Intelligence
related work

Broken, Buried, or Missing: Anatomies of Failure (and Success) of Social Media Child Safety Features
June 29, 2026
Lexie Matsumoto, Arturo Béjar, Abdulraheem Arar, Damon McCoy, Laura Edelson

Measuring Agency-Amplifying AI Literacy: The HuskyAI Coaching Platform for Workforce Readiness
July 1, 2026
John P. Wihbey, Yash Phalle, Shashank Kadiyala, Caleb Okereke
Working Paper

How Americans Spend their Time Online
June 8, 2026
David Lazer, Burak Ozturan, Christo Wilson, David Choffnes, Cassidy Waldrip, Hsiu-Chi Lu, John Wihbey
bottom of page
.png)