Photo: Donald Trump, via Twitter
Facebook goes out of their way to support right-wing content creators. A few months ago, we learned that Facebook had been backing off fact-checking for conservative sources. They’ve simultaneously buried left-leaning news sites as well. We also knew that fake news is skyrocketing on the platform ahead of the 2020 election, outperforming real news by a wide margin. As it turns out, that spread of fake news was entirely intentional. Facebook went out of their way to remove flags for false content when it came to conservative sources, including working directly with Donald Trump’s children.
Ahead of an election, Facebook worked hard to push their users towards conservatives. While this helped propel Donald Trump to victory in 2016, it wasn’t enough to help him win 2020. Still, with Facebook’s obvious bias a problem for democracy in America, we must be critical of even their failed attempts to manipulate the election.
Coddling Conservatives
The Washington Post spoke to current and former Facebook employees. They combined reports along with ad spending analysis and fraudulent posts from content creators. What they found confirmed a previous report of impropriety on Facebook’s part. The company has been allowing more lax enforcement of their fact checking rules specifically for conservatives to keep them on the site. They’ve allowed fake stories and disinformation to spread among users, despite knowing stories were false, to appease conservatives. Apparently, this even applied to members of Trump’s family.
An independent third party is responsible for Facebook’s fact checking. However, Facebook chooses how they can implement their own rules and labels. This means that, while a story or political ad can be verified as false, only Facebook can decide if the ad can run or the spread of a post.
Recently, Facebook decided not to slap Donald Trump Jr. with a repeat infraction offense, which should have lead to him losing ad buying rights and limited his account’s exposure. Instead, they simply cleared the slate for him. It’s the same treatment they’ve given other popular conservative voices like Rush Limbaugh, Gateway Pundit, Breitbart, and Diamond & Silk. For Republicans on Facebook’s platform, truth doesn’t matter. Facebook will spread what they say all the same.
But Why?
The first reason is obvious, and we’ve mentioned it at great length. Right-wing posts simply garner more attention. Facebook’s userbase, perhaps in part because of their deregulation of right-wing voices, is largely conservative. On top of that, right-wing beliefs are simply more controversial. Bigotry not only attracts those who support hateful views, but also those who do not want to see hate on their timeline, or believe they may turn a friend or family member away from hate. Hate speech increases interaction, and that drives ad revenue for Facebook. It also helps Facebook build a better profile on their users.
But there’s another, perhaps more sinister reason Facebook might support right-wing politicians and pundits. Republicans have not expressed the same desire to break up Facebook as some Democratic politicians have. Elizabeth Warren, for example, as called for the break up of Facebook. This would force Facebook’s properties, Instagram and WhatsApp, to split from the company, forming their own companies again. It would reduce Facebook’s profitability and data collection. This is worse than the claims of censorship the right flings at Facebook, despite their pandering. Liberals have an actual threat against Facebook: enforcing existing antitrust laws.
Facebook is a Political Entity
Left: Mark Zuckerberg. Photo Jessica Chou/NY Times. Right: Chris Hughes. Photo Damon Winter/NY Times.
It’s clear that Facebook wants to control policies. We need to treat it like the threat to democracy it has become. They have shown clear political bias, all while taking advantage of their size and monopoly status to control political discourse for the entire country. We should have broken up Facebook in 2016 after they allowed false stories to outnumber real stories, handing the election to Trump.
Let’s hope it’s not too late to save our democracy.
Sources:
- Jon Fingas, Engadget
- Alyse Stanley, Gizmodo
- Isaac Stanley-Becker and Elizabeth Dwoskin, The Washington Post