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https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/26/censorship-conservatives-social-media-432643
Republicans have turned alleged liberal bias in Silicon Valley into a major closing theme of the election cycle, hauling tech CEOs in for virtual grillings on Capitol Hill while President Donald Trump threatens legal punishment for companies that censor his supporters.
But a POLITICO analysis of millions of social media posts shows that conservatives still rule online.
Right-wing social media influencers, conservative media outlets and other GOP supporters dominate online discussions around two of the election’s hottest issues, the Black Lives Matter movement and voter fraud, according to the review of Facebook posts, Instagram feeds, Twitter messages and conversations on two popular message boards. And their lead isn’t close.
As racial protests engulfed the nation after George Floyd’s death, users shared the most-viral rightwing social media content more than 10 times as often as the most popular liberal posts, frequently associating the Black Lives Matter movement with violence and accusing Democrats like Joe Biden of supporting riots.
People also shared conservatives’ most-read claims of rampant voter fraud roughly twice as often as they did liberals’ or traditional media outlets’ discussions of the issue, the analysis found. The conservatives’ tactics included spinning mainstream media coverage on voting irregularities into elaborate conspiracy theories, sometimes echoed by Trump, that Democratic lawmakers are trying to steal November’s election.
Republicans have turned alleged liberal bias in Silicon Valley into a major closing theme of the election cycle, hauling tech CEOs in for virtual grillings on Capitol Hill while President Donald Trump threatens legal punishment for companies that censor his supporters.
But a POLITICO analysis of millions of social media posts shows that conservatives still rule online.
Right-wing social media influencers, conservative media outlets and other GOP supporters dominate online discussions around two of the election’s hottest issues, the Black Lives Matter movement and voter fraud, according to the review of Facebook posts, Instagram feeds, Twitter messages and conversations on two popular message boards. And their lead isn’t close.
As racial protests engulfed the nation after George Floyd’s death, users shared the most-viral rightwing social media content more than 10 times as often as the most popular liberal posts, frequently associating the Black Lives Matter movement with violence and accusing Democrats like Joe Biden of supporting riots.
People also shared conservatives’ most-read claims of rampant voter fraud roughly twice as often as they did liberals’ or traditional media outlets’ discussions of the issue, the analysis found. The conservatives’ tactics included spinning mainstream media coverage on voting irregularities into elaborate conspiracy theories, sometimes echoed by Trump, that Democratic lawmakers are trying to steal November’s election.
