• Home
  • Independent Voter News
  • Quizzes
  • Election Dissection
  • Sections
  • Events
  • Directory
  • About Us
  • Glossary
  • Opinion
  • Campaign Finance
  • Redistricting
  • Civic Ed
  • Voting
  • Fact Check
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up
  1. Home>
  2. Big Picture>
  3. social media>

Despite claims of bias, conservatives thrive on social media

Sara Swann
https://twitter.com/saramswann?lang=en
February 01, 2021
Trump Twitter account suspended
Jakub Porzycki/Getty Images

Social media has become a punching bag for conservatives, who claim Facebook and Twitter have been silencing them. But in reality, the political right thrives on such platforms, a new report found.

The 28-page study, released Monday by New York University's Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, debunks the claim of anti-conservative bias on social media and shows how well the GOP has used those platforms for messaging and fundraising.

While the false pretense that social media sites are anti-conservative is not new, Republican ire was reignited last month after Twitter and other platforms banned President Donald Trump just days before the end of his term. That crackdown has spurred debate over the role social media companies will play in regulating future content.


"Trump's being exiled from the most popular social media channels should not be misconstrued as confirmation of the claim he and others on the right have long made about platform bias," the report says. "The Trump bans, while unprecedented, were based on reasonable determinations that he violated platform rules against sabotaging election results and inciting violence."

Before Trump was kicked off Facebook, user engagement on his page dwarfed that of Joe Biden. Paul Barrett, the report's primary author and deputy director of the Stern Center, found that from Sept. 3, 2020, to Election Day, there were 307 million likes, comments and shares between the two pages — and Trump elicited 87 percent of them.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

His dominance of social media goes back to his first campaign: Facebook and Twitter were actually key to his 2016 victory because targeted political ads on those platforms allowed him to rake in a huge chunk of campaign cash.

And it's not just Trump's activity that's been popular on social media. Right-leaning pages almost always dominate the list of profiles with the highest engagement on Facebook, the report found. Fox News, Breitbart and The Daily Caller consistently held the top three spots from Jan. 1, 2020, to Election Day. These three conservative news outlets collectively generated 839 million interactions — beating the total engagement from seven of the top mainstream media pages (CNN, ABC News, BBC News, NBC News, NPR, Now This and The New York Times).

"The claim of anti-conservative animus is itself a form of disinformation: a falsehood with no reliable evidence to support it," Barrett writes in the report.

The NYU report isn't the only evidence that claims of anti-conservative bias on social media are unfounded.

Kevin Roose, a columnist for The New York Times, tweets daily list of the top-performing links on Facebook — data routinely dominated by the right.

The top-performing link posts by U.S. Facebook pages in the last 24 hours are from: 1. Fox News 2. Fox News 3. For… https://t.co/GDBEg1OC9w
— Facebook's Top 10 (@Facebook's Top 10) 1612197400.0

Moving forward, the report recommends that social media companies provide greater disclosure for content moderation actions, offer users a choice among algorithms, hire more human moderators to oversee high-profile accounts and release more data for researchers.

For the Biden administration, the report recommends pursuing a constructive reform agenda for social media, creating a new agency charged with digital content oversight and working with Congress to update the so-called Section 230, which protects online platforms from potential liability.

"What is needed is a robust reform agenda that addresses the very real problems of social media content regulation as it currently exists," Barrett said. "Only by moving forward from these false claims can we begin to pursue that agenda in earnest."

From Your Site Articles
  • Disinformation spreaders should be barred from public office - The ... ›
  • Twitter joins new push to curb election chaos online - The Fulcrum ›
  • How disinformation could sway the 2020 election - The Fulcrum ›
  • What is Section 230? - The Fulcrum ›
  • can conservatives trust journalists? - The Fulcrum ›
  • Here's how Facebook's algorithms can influence you - The Fulcrum ›
  • Dual loyalties created ethics problem for Chris Cuomo, CNN - The Fulcrum ›
  • CivilTalk aims to bring civility to social media landscape - The Fulcrum ›
Related Articles Around the Web
  • Once again, there is no 'anti-conservative' bias on social media ›
  • Trump Accuses Social Media Of Anti-Conservative Bias After Twitter ... ›
  • Evidence of anti-conservative bias by platforms remains anecdotal ... ›
social media
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Follow
Contributors

Independent voters want to be heard. Is anybody listening?

David Thornburgh
John Opdycke

The U.S. has been seeking the center since the days of Teddy Roosevelt

Dave Anderson

Imperfection and perseverance

Jeff Clements

We’ve expanded the Supreme Court before. It’s time to do so again.

Anushka Sarkar

The ‘great replacement theory’ is nonsense

Debilyn Molineaux

Inflation will hit health of low-income Americans hardest

Robert Pearl
latest News

Nearly 20 states have restricted private funding of elections

David Meyers
37m

Video: Will Trump run in 2024?

Our Staff
5h

The state of voting: May 23, 2022

Our Staff
23h

Trump looms large over Tuesday’s primaries

Richard Perrins
23 May

Podcast: Abortion politics take center stage

Our Staff
23 May

Your Take: Inspiring sports memories

Our Staff
20 May
Videos

Video: Helping loved ones divided by politics

Our Staff

Video: What happened in Virginia?

Our Staff

Video: Infrastructure past, present, and future

Our Staff

Video: Beyond the headlines SCOTUS 2021 - 2022

Our Staff

Video: Should we even have a debt limit

Our Staff

Video: #ListenFirstFriday Yap Politics

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: Did economists move the Democrats to the right?

Our Staff
02 May

Podcast: The future of depolarization

Our Staff
11 February

Podcast: Sore losers are bad for democracy

Our Staff
20 January

Deconstructed Podcast from IVN

Our Staff
08 November 2021
Recommended
Independent voters want to be heard. Is anybody listening?

Independent voters want to be heard. Is anybody listening?

Voting
Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg

Nearly 20 states have restricted private funding of elections

State
Video: Will Trump run in 2024?

Video: Will Trump run in 2024?

Elections
State of voting - election law changes

The state of voting: May 23, 2022

Voting
Mo Brooks and Donald Trump

Trump looms large over Tuesday’s primaries

Voting
Podcast: Abortion politics take center stage

Podcast: Abortion politics take center stage

Leadership