Conservatives Spent 2020 Accusing Facebook of Being Biased Against Them, but Engagement Data Tells a Different Story

In 2020, right-leaning Facebook pages consistently earned more interactions than ideologically nonaligned and left-leaning pages—again.

by

Kayla Gogarty

Published on

Monday, January 04, 2021

by

Media Matters for America

Right-leaning pages earned over 45% of all interactions on posts from political 

Facebook pages. (Photo: flickr/GostGo/cc)

Research contributions from Carly Evans & Spencer Silva

In 2020, right-wing media outlets and figures repeatedly claimed that social media platforms, particularly Facebook, are biased against conservatives and censor their content, even though there is no evidence to support these claims. Media Matters and others have demonstrated again and again that no such bias or censorship exists. In fact, there are numerous examples of Facebook capitulating to conservatives and giving right-wing pages preferential treatment.

In this latest study, Media Matters found that right-leaning Facebook pages consistently earned more engagement in 2020 than ideologically nonaligned and left-leaning pages -- and the Facebook pages with the most engagement include prominent right-wing media outlets and figures, such as Donald J. Trump, Fox News, Ben Shapiro, Breitbart, Dan Bongino, and the Daily Mail.

Media Matters used CrowdTangle data to compile and analyze millions of posts from right-leaning, left-leaning, and ideologically nonaligned Facebook pages about U.S. political news that were posted between January 1 and December 15, 2020. We found that right-leaning pages earned over 45% of all interactions on posts from political Facebook pages. Other key findings include:

• Right-leaning pages earned the most interactions this year, with nearly 9 billion interactions on roughly 2.3 million posts. Right-leaning pages accounted for 45% of total interactions from political pages and nearly 30% of total posts.
• Ideologically nonaligned pages earned 5.7 billion interactions this year on roughly 4.5 million posts. These pages accounted for less than 30% of total interactions from political Facebook pages, despite being over 55% of total posts.
• Left-leaning pages earned nearly 5 billion interactions this year on roughly 1.3 million posts. These pages accounted for over 25% of total interactions for political pages and posted only 16% of total posts.
• Right-leaning pages also had the highest interaction rate, a performance metric that measures the engagement of a Facebook page in relation to the number of page “likes” it has and how frequently it shares posts. Conservative pages had an overall average interaction rate of 0.97%, while left-leaning pages had a rate of 0.83% and nonaligned pages had a rate of only 0.27%.

Right-leaning pages consistently earned more weekly interactions

In addition to earning the most interactions overall, right-leaning pages consistently earned more weekly interactions than ideologically nonaligned and left-leaning pages between January 1 and December 15. The only exception was two weeks in March when news coverage was dominated by developments in the COVID-19 pandemic. During this time, ideologically nonaligned pages earned 2-3 million more interactions than right-leaning pages. 

In the second half of the year, the gap in performance between right-leaning pages and the others in our data set widened following nationwide protests against police brutality and systemic racism and in the lead-up to the presidential election. During this time period, right-leaning pages substantially outperformed other pages and earned over 100 million more average weekly interactions than either ideologically nonaligned and left-leaning pages between June 3 and December 15.

Right-leaning pages account for 6 of the top 10 political pages that earned the most engagement 

Of the 10 political pages that earned the most engagement between January 1 and December 15, six are right-leaning pages, two are ideologically nonaligned pages, and two are left-leaning pages. President Donald Trump’s Facebook page leads the top 10 with over 867 million interactions in 2020.

The top 10 Facebook pages posting about U.S. political news in 2020 were:

1. Donald J. Trump, a right-leaning page which earned over 867 million interactions on over 6,200 posts.
2. Occupy Democrats, a left-leaning page which earned nearly 615 million interactions on over 20,900 posts.
3. Fox News, a right-leaning page which earned over 511 million interactions on over 17,300 posts. 
4. Ben Shapiro, a right-leaning page which earned nearly 380 million interactions on over 33,400 posts. 
5. Breitbart, a right-leaning page which earned over 338 million interactions on over 20,700 posts.
6. UNICEF, an ideologically nonaligned page which earned over 324 million interactions on over 1,700 posts. (UNICEF has partnered with Facebook for public health education, and Facebook’s info panel has been boosting the page’s posts.)
7. The Other 98%, a left-leaning page which earned over 250 million interactions on nearly 10,000 posts.
8. Dan Bongino, a right-leaning page which earned over 235 million interactions on over 5,000 posts.
9. CNN, an ideologically nonaligned page which earned over 228 million interactions on over 20,300 posts.
10.   Daily Mail, a right-leaning page which earned over 219 million interactions on over 48,500 posts.

Methodology

Using CrowdTangle, Media Matters compiled a list of 1,773 Facebook pages that frequently posted about U.S. politics from January 1 to August 25, 2020.

For an explanation of how we compiled pages and identified them as right-leaning, left-leaning, or ideologically nonaligned, see the methodology here.

The resulting list consisted of 771 right-leaning pages, 497 ideologically nonaligned pages, and 505 left-leaning pages.

Using CrowdTangle, Media Matters compiled overall and weekly leaderboard data for the pages on this list between January 1 and December 15, 2020. We reviewed data for these pages, including total interactions (reactions, comments, and shares), total posts, pages likes, and interaction rate. CrowdTangle calculates the interaction rate of a group of pages by dividing the total number of interactions (reactions, comments, and shares) earned on all posts from the pages by the total number of posts from the pages, and then dividing by average page likes for the pages. For this calculation, average page likes is based on the page likes for each page at the end of the time frame.

© 2020 Media Matters for America

Kayla Gogarty is a senior researcher at Media Matters, where she has worked since September 2018. She holds a master’s degree in chemistry research from Stony Brook University and has a background in LGBTQ media and advocacy. She previously worked as an LGBTQ opposition researcher at Media Matters and prior to that interned at the Human Rights Campaign.

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Overshadowed by COVID: The Deadly Extreme Weather of 2020

2020 was alarming, unforgettable and traumatic—and not only because of COVID-19. Lethal natural hazards are increasing in frequency under our changing climate, and 2020 is a testament to that.

by

Chloe Brimicombe, Elliott Sainsbury, Gabrielle Powell, Wilson Chan

THE CONVERSATION 1/1/2021

What’s left of the Rio Grande forms much of the US-Mexico border. (Photo: Shutterstock/Piotr Kalinowski)

The year 2020 will no doubt go down in history for other reasons, but it is also on target to be one of the warmest on record. And as the climate warms, natural hazards will happen more frequently – and be ever more lethal.

We are early career researchers in meteorology, geography and environmental sciences, and each of us focus on a different hazard. We may not have been as in demand as our colleagues in virology departments, but we nonetheless had a particularly interesting and busy year. So while attention was often focused elsewhere, perhaps understandably, here are some of the meteorological extremes recorded in 2020.

Wicked wildfires

The year began with apocalyptic scenes of wildfires in Australia, fuelled by heatwaves. It was an image that would play out time and time again in 2020.

In June, Siberia began to burn on an unprecedented scale, at the same time as record temperatures which climate change had made 600 times more likely. 

A forest fire near the city of Cuiaba, Brazil, August 2020. Rogerio Florentino / EPA

Through July and August, the west coast of the US was ablaze. The worst wildfire season in 70 years again coincided with a heatwave, with Death Valley in California recording America’s highest temperature for at least a century – maybe ever.

By September, the Amazon rainforest and the world’s largest wetland to its south, the Pantanal, were on fire. More than a quarter of those fires happened in forest that had not been disturbed by deforestation.

In September 2019, fires in the Amazon had made worldwide headlines. In 2020 there were actually 66% more fires in that month, but attention was elsewhere.

Savage storms

In November, super typhoon Goni made landfall in the Philippines while at maximum intensity, with sustained wind speeds of 195mph. One of the strongest storms to ever make landfall worldwide, Goni directly affected nearly nearly 70 million people, leading to at least 26 fatalities – a number that would have undoubtedly been higher if not for the evacuation of almost 1 million people.

But it wasn’t just wind that posed serious hazards in the western Pacific in 2020. Tropical storms Linfa and Nangka caused significant flooding across Vietnam, exacerbating the problems caused by an unusually active monsoon. More than 136,000 homes were flooded and more than 100 people died.

There are now five Atlantic tropical cyclones from tropical depression to hurricane strength active simultaneously. This has only happened once before on record in 1971. #Paulette #Rene #Sally #Teddy #Vicky pic.twitter.com/WXwDwYr7W3

— Met Office Storms (@metofficestorms) September 14, 2020

In the North Atlantic, 2020 was the busiest hurricane season on record, with 30 named storms and six major hurricanes. The single costliest storm of the season, Hurricane Laura, made landfall in Haiti and Louisiana, killing 77 people and causing more than US$14 billion (£10 billion) in damages.

Two major hurricanes, Eta and Iota, caused significant damage in Honduras and Nicaragua. They made landfall in the region in November, just two weeks and 15 miles apart. This is a humanitarian crisis yet one that has received relatively little attention overseas.

A woman in Colombia looks out at the destruction caused by Hurricane Iota. Mauricio Duenas Castaneda / EPA

Frightening floods

The world’s deadliest flooding this year took place in east Africa in March through May. At least 430 lives were lost and an estimated 116,000 people were displaced in Kenya alone. The previous dry season was particularly wet, and was followed by above average rainfall during the “long rains” of March-May, meaning the vast Lake Victoria had twice its normal rainfall.

Africa on May 5 and 6, 2020: areas experiencing flood watch (red), warning (orange), or advisory (green) conditions. NASA / Margaret T. Glasscoe (JPL)

Though the rainfall was predicted in advance, locust outbreaks and COVID meant vulnerable people were already less able to handle the floods and secondary hazards such as widespread landslides and a cholera outbreak. The wet conditions were also ideal for further breeding of desert locusts. When it rains, it truly does pour.

Devastating droughts

Water crises caused by droughts and resource mismanagement were ranked as the fifth highest risk in terms of impact in the 2020 Global Risks Report - greater than infectious diseases and unemployment.

The severe drought across central and western US is the first billion-dollar drought of 2020, contributing to a record-breaking 16 weather and climate disasters with USD$1 billion or more in damages in the US in 2020 alone.

Conditions during 2020 represented the latest phase of a “mega-drought” over the past 20 years. By the peak in summer, a third of the US was in a moderate drought and much of the west was under severe to extreme drought. This coincided with abnormally hot summer temperatures and over 2 million acres of land burned nationwide, further enhancing drought conditions in a vicious cycle.

Drought conditions across the lower 48 states, on August 11 2020. NASA

The Rio Grande river, a major source of water supply for southwest states, would have completely ceased to flow had water providers not decided to pause existing water diversion schemes. Other impacts included crop damage from one in 50 year dry soil moisture conditions and a rise in dust storms  reminiscent of the 1930s Dust Bowl.

The latest seasonal outlooks estimate that drought conditions may extend westwards and persist into 2021, complicating the recovery from a difficult year.

Horrendous heatwaves

In May, while a large cyclone struck Bangladesh and eastern India, the north of India experienced temperatures of up to 47℃. This also delayed the onset of the monsoon, impacting farming.

The northern hemisphere summer saw repeated heatwaves, culminating in mid-August. Japan, for instance, had record-breaking temperatures with cities across the country having multiple days at 40°C. In one week, more than 12,000 people were admitted to hospital with heat-related illnesses. Even the UK’s heatwave, accompanied by tropical nights, caused 1,700 excess deaths.

An all too familiar sight. Juan Carlos Caval / EPA

At the start of the summer season in Australia, temperature records have already been broken. It seems the year will go out on an extreme high.

2020 was alarming, unforgettable and traumatic – and not only because of COVID-19. Lethal natural hazards are increasing in frequency under our changing climate, and 2020 is a testament to that.

Chloe Brimicombe, PhD Candidate in Climate Change and Health, University of Reading

Elliott Sainsbury, PhD Researcher, Hurricanes and Post-Tropical Cyclones, University of Reading

Gabrielle Powell, PhD Candidate in Environmental Science, University of Reading

Wilson Chan, PhD Researcher in Drought Risk, University of Reading

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

 DEMOCRATIC SOCIALSTS OF AMERICA

For the First Time, the Progressive Caucus Will Have Real Power

New rules will help Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) turn the caucus into a force to be reckoned with.

IMAGINE THE NDP AS A CAUCUS OF THE LIBERAL PARTY 

(PS ALL LIBERALS TURN RIGHT NOT LEFT)

by

Joel Blei­fuss

Published on

Wednesday, December 30, 2020

 by

In These Times

U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (Wash.), the current co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) will lead as the sole chair of the CPC for the 117th Congress. (Photo by Salwan Georges/the Washington Post via Getty Images)

The Demo­c­ra­t­ic major­i­ty in the House is shap­ing up to be one of the most pro­gres­sive — and par­ti­san — ever, as mem­bers of the 117th Con­gress assume office Jan­u­ary 3. 

While some mod­er­ate Dems lost their House seats, the Con­gres­sion­al Pro­gres­sive Cau­cus (CPC) gained mem­bers, includ­ing Reps. Jamaal Bow­man (N.Y.) and Cori Bush (Mo.), both mem­bers of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Social­ists of America. 

Yes, Belt­way pun­dits will belly­ache about the death of cross-par­ty comi­ty. But in Con­gress, bipar­ti­san­ship does not serve the inter­ests of the major­i­ty of Democ­rats, espe­cial­ly those who suf­fer the effects of struc­tur­al racism and gen­er­a­tional pover­ty. Look no fur­ther than three ​“crown­ing” bipar­ti­san achieve­ments of the 1990s: the 1994 crime bill, the Wel­fare Reform Act of 1996 and the 1999 repeal of Glass-Stea­gall bank reg­u­la­tion. The lat­ter came home to roost in 2008, enabling the finan­cial cri­sis. The George W. Bush administration’s sub­se­quent $700 bil­lion bank bailout res­cued Wall Street but did noth­ing for the 10 mil­lion fam­i­lies who lost their homes. 

Fast for­ward 12 years and we are again head­ed toward eco­nom­ic cat­a­stro­phe. The Covid-19 pan­dem­ic and the expi­ra­tion of pan­dem­ic-relat­ed unem­ploy­ment ben­e­fits will move 14 mil­lion Amer­i­cans one step clos­er to deep pover­ty and home­less­ness. This lev­el of eco­nom­ic des­ti­tu­tion has not been seen since the 1930s. 

One dif­fer­ence between the Covid-19 Reces­sion and the 2008 Great Reces­sion is that pro­gres­sives in Con­gress have since got­ten their act togeth­er. The CPC has restruc­tured itself (start­ing Jan­u­ary 3) into a dis­ci­plined, small‑d demo­c­ra­t­ic polit­i­cal oper­a­tion that will push pro­gres­sive leg­is­la­tion on the inside while help­ing raise a ruckus on the outside. 

Under new rules approved in Novem­ber 2020, the CPC will no longer be led by two co-chairs. For the 117th Con­gress, Rep. Prami­la Jaya­pal (Wash.) will lead. Anoth­er change requires mem­bers to vote as a bloc on issues sup­port­ed by two-thirds of the cau­cus. Should a mem­ber fail to adhere to this rule at least 66% of the time, they could face expul­sion. In addi­tion, mem­bers must attend CPC meet­ings and respond to requests from the cau­cus whip (cur­rent­ly Minnesota’s Rep. Ilhan Omar) about where they stand on issues. 

If some CPC mem­bers find the new rules unac­cept­able, no sweat. Jaya­pal made clear she ​“would rather have peo­ple who are real­ly com­mit­ted to the Pro­gres­sive Cau­cus in the cau­cus and par­tic­i­pat­ing rather than sort of just hav­ing it as a label.” 

Bow­man greet­ed news of the reforms with a tweet: ​“Ready to flex our mus­cle and join the era of col­lec­tive pro­gres­sive power.” 

The Congressional Progressive Caucus has restructured itself into a disciplined, small-d democratic political operation.

Jaya­pal, who entered Con­gress in 2016 (after a 20-year career as a com­mu­ni­ty orga­niz­er), admits in an inter­view with Seattle’s alter­na­tive week­ly, The Stranger, that it will become all but impos­si­ble to pass pro­gres­sive leg­is­la­tion should Repub­li­cans con­trol the Sen­ate. ​“Then we have to use an inside/​outside strat­e­gy like the one I was part of when we got Oba­ma to agree to [the Dream Act],” Jaya­pal says. ​“We may have to be the wind behind the sails that helps Joe Biden and Kamala Har­ris deliv­er change through exec­u­tive action, if we can’t do it legislatively.”

Because the Demo­c­ra­t­ic major­i­ty in the House is so slim — just 13 seats — a unit­ed CPC could even extract the con­ces­sions from House lead­er­ship so des­per­ate­ly need­ed right now: evic­tion mora­to­ri­ums, stu­dent debt relief, unem­ploy­ment assistance.

These types of poli­cies are anath­e­ma to par­ty cen­trists, who appar­ent­ly would rather cap­tain a sink­ing ship than sur­ren­der any con­trol to par­ti­sans in steer­age. But pro­vid­ing actu­al eco­nom­ic relief is essen­tial to pre­vent Demo­c­ra­t­ic loss­es in the midterms and 2024. Move­ment-backed Democ­rats must be dis­ci­plined and orga­nized in work­ing with the new pres­i­dent, who inher­its a crisis.

Oth­er­wise, a ship­wreck is imminent.

Joel Blei­fuss, a for­mer direc­tor of the Peace Stud­ies Pro­gram at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mis­souri-Colum­bia, is the edi­tor & pub­lish­er of In These Times, where he has worked since Octo­ber 19