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The social media platforms of the twenty-first century have an enormous role in regulating speech in the USA and worldwide. However, there has been little research on platform-wide interventions on speech. Here we evaluate the effect of the decision by Twitter to suddenly deplatform 70,000 misinformation traffickers in response to the violence at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 (a series of events commonly known as and referred to here as ‘January 6th’). Using a panel of more than 500,000 active Twitter users and natural experimental designs, we evaluate the effects of this intervention on the circulation of misinformation on Twitter.