Social media has played a key role in the demonstrations, galvanizing protesters across the country after video of Floyd’s death spread across social media platforms. These tools have also allowed people to document harrowing instances of police using unnecessary and excessive force against protesters, bystanders, residents, and journalists in real time.

Facebook’s algorithm currently influences a user’s news feed by prioritizing posts with high engagement as well as posts from pages that a user typically interacts with. Critics argue such algorithms contribute to information echo chambers and “filter bubbles,” which internet activist Eli Pariser defines as the “personal, unique universe of information that you live in online.” Internal Facebook studies have reportedly confirmed this effect, saying the algorithms “aggravate polarization and tribal behavior.”

Additionally, Trump and his supporters are using the right-wing Facebook propaganda machine, which is known for pushing right-wing talking points to the news feeds of millions of Facebook users, to amplify misleading narratives about the protests and even to encourage violence against protesters. In fact, Facebook did not take action against one of Trump’s posts about protests that suggested “the government would fire upon rioting crowds,” while Twitter took action against the same message for “glorifying violence.”

In this new study, Media Matters found that right-wing fearmongering is leading discussion of the protests on Facebook, as posts from right-leaning pages earned the most engagement, with over 48 million interactions. Posts from right-leaning pages earned nearly 40% of engagement of all the posts analyzed despite constituting only 26% of total content.

Top posts from right-leaning, nonaligned, and left-leaning Facebook pages illuminate the protest narratives being amplified within each social media ecosystem. Media Matters found right-leaning and nonaligned pages misrepresented largely peaceful protests and left-leaning pages pushed a variety of different narratives, including lifting up Black voices.

Media Matters analyzed 9,368 posts from 330 right-leaning pages made between 4:45 p.m. EDT on May 31 and 4:45 p.m. EDT on June 3. These posts earned over 48 million interactions on Facebook and averaged approximately 5,100 interactions per post.

The top post about protests is an 18-minute video from right-wing figure Candace Owens, who says she doesn’t “support” Floyd or see him as a “martyr.” She goes on to disparage Floyd and say that the Black community is “unique” because its members are “the only people that fight and scream and demand support and justice for the people in our community that are up to no good.”

In addition to Owens’ live video, Media Matters identified the other nine posts about the protests from right-leaning Facebook pages that earned the most interactions. These posts reinforce narratives Fox News and other right-wing media outlets have promoted in response to the largely peaceful protests, including amplifying a small number of instances of violence from protesters, ignoring accounts of police instigating violence, and praising Trump for tear-gassing peaceful protesters.

Posts amplifying instances of violence and blaming protesters

• Donald J. Trump

• Terrence K Williams

• Fox News

Posts praising or defending Trump and his actions against peaceful protesters

• Donald J. Trump

• Franklin Graham

Media Matters analyzed 19,296 posts from 338 nonaligned pages made between 4:45 p.m. EDT on May 31 and 4:45 p.m. EDT on June 3. These posts earned nearly 41.9 million interactions on Facebook, averaging approximately 2,200 interactions per post.

Media Matters identified the 10 posts about the protests from nonaligned Facebook pages that earned the most interactions and found the majority were from broadcast and local news networks and largely highlighted instances of looting, rioting, and violence during demonstrations, which misrepresents the mostly peaceful protests across the country. These posts are consistent with media coverage of the protests, which has sanitized police violence by using watered-down descriptions of police actions and implying that both sides are responsible for escalation.

Other top posts included one from journalist Dan Rather saying that “the United States is not on the verge of collapse” and posts from Reuters, CNN, and CNBC that highlighted developments in Floyd’s case as Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison increased charges against former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin and charged the three other officers responsible for Floyd’s death.

Posts misrepresenting peaceful protests against police brutality

• Fox 11 Los Angeles

• NBC News

• FOX 13 News - Tampa Bay

• CBS Los Angeles

• ABC News

Media Matters analyzed 7,436 posts from 373 left-leaning pages made between 4:45 p.m. EDT on May 31 and 4:45 p.m. EDT on June 3. These posts earned nearly 33.5 million interactions on Facebook and averaged approximately 4,500 interactions per post.

The top Facebook post from left-leaning pages is former President Barack Obama’s response to the protests, which highlighted ways to “sustain momentum to bring about real change” and earned nearly 1.5 million interactions.

Media Matters identified the 10 Facebook posts about the protests from left-leaning pages that received the most interactions, including Obama’s post, and found that these examples largely highlighted Black Americans’ responses to the protests, including criticism that looting negatively impacts the protests, but also promoted a variety of narratives about issues around the demonstrations. This variety in content contrasts with the mostly unified narratives among top posts from right-leaning and nonaligned Facebook pages. These posts on left-leaning pages included commentary highlighting instances of police brutality, criticizing Trump's response to the nationwide protests, showing instances of police taking a knee with protesters, and calling for an end to violence and looting.

Posts lifting up Black voices

• NowThis

• The Daily Show

• Occupy Democrats

• TheGrio

• BuzzFeed News

Over the weekend of June 6-7, large numbers of protesters organized demonstrations in cities across the country. To understand the narratives being spread online, Media Matters analyzed 24,171 posts about protests made by right-leaning, nonaligned, and left-leaning Facebook pages between June 5 at 11:45 a.m. EDT and June 8 at 11:45 a.m. EDT. Key findings include:

• Right-leaning Facebook pages earned over 26 million interactions on 6,480 posts, once again surpassing engagement on posts from both left-leaning and ideologically nonaligned pages.
• Although posts from right-leaning pages accounted for only 27% of posts about protests over the weekend, they earned approximately 42% of engagement on such posts. 
• Nonaligned Facebook pages earned nearly 19 million interactions on 12,329 posts about the protests made over the weekend. Notably, nonaligned pages made nearly 51% of posts about the protests but earned only 30% of total engagement -- less engagement than posts about the protests by right-leaning Facebook pages, but more than posts from left-leaning ones. 
• Left-leaning Facebook pages earned approximately 17 million interactions on 5,362 posts. Overall, left-leaning pages posted about the protests less than either right-leaning or nonaligned pages (22% of posts) and earned less engagement overall (27% of engagement). 

For right-leaning Facebook pages, the 10 posts with the most engagement over the weekend period were all from President Donald Trump or Black conservative influencers Terrence K. Williams, The Hodgetwins, or Candace Owens and all cast a negative light on the protesters and their motivations.

The 10 posts with the most engagement from nonaligned pages were all from national news outlets such as NPR, The New York Times, The Washington Post, or journalist Dan Rather. 

The 10 posts with the most engagement from left-leaning pages were predominantly from the pages Occupy Democrats, The Other 98%, or known grifter Shaun King. The post with the most engagement among left-leaning Facebook pages was a video from NowThis highlighting numerous instances of police brutality against protesters.

Media Matters compiled a list of 1,223 Facebook pages that pertain to news and media outlets, media figures, politicians, political parties, and issue-focused advocacy groups. Each page in this study also: (1) had over 500,000 page likes, (2) had primarily English-language content, and (3) posted content related to U.S. political news.

Pages were coded by two researchers and reconciled by a third researcher for two factors: (1) content related to political news and (2) ideological alignment (left-leaning, right-leaning, nonaligned, or “other”). Each page was individually reviewed, and only pages that regularly focused on news about American politics were included in the study. The ideological alignment of a page was determined by a page’s name, information in the “About” section, the page owner, and posts. Pages that expressed opposition to President Donald Trump or focused on issues primarily aimed at liberals (e.g., protecting abortion rights, calling for action against gun violence, etc.) were coded as left-leaning. Pages that expressed support for Trump or focused on issues primarily aimed at conservatives (e.g., restricting abortion rights, downplaying gun violence, etc.) were coded as right-leaning. All pages for right-wing and left-wing media outlets were automatically coded as right-leaning or left-leaning, respectively. Pages that did not have an ideological leaning in their content were coded as nonaligned. If there was doubt about whether to code a page as nonaligned or left-leaning, the page was coded as left-leaning. Pages were coded as “other” if they did not fit in any of the above categories or if they contained a mix of left-leaning and right-leaning content. These pages were excluded from the final dataset.

The resulting list of pages were 384 right-leaning pages, 377 nonaligned pages, 435 left-leaning pages, and 27 “other.”

Media Matters compiled and reviewed data, including total interactions (reactions, comments, and shares), on Facebook posts that mentioned protests against police brutality and were shared by Media Matters’ list of 1,196 Facebook pages, excluding pages coded as “other,” between 4:45 p.m. EDT May 31, 2020 and 4:45 p.m. EDT June 3, 2020. We defined posts that mentioned the protests as any post that had any of the following keywords in the post’s message or in an included link, article headline, or article description: “protest,” “protests,” “riot,” “rioters,” “protestor,” “protester,” “rioter,” “George Floyd,” “Floyd,” “streets,” “street,” “city,” “cities,” “loot,” “loots,” “looters,” “curfew,” “insurrection,” “insurrection act,” “national guard,” “military,” “blackhawk,” “police,” “blue lives matter,” “black lives matter,” “gun,” “guns,” “violence,” “target,” “macy's,” “violence,” “peaceful,” “tear gas,” “pepper spray,” “fireworks,” “killed,” “murder,” “looting,” “When the looting starts, the shooting starts,” “Derek Chauvin,” “knee,” “I can't breathe,” “rioting,” “cruiser,” “antifa,” “violent,” or “flashbang.” The resulting data set included 9,368 posts from 330 right-leaning pages, 19,296 posts from 338 nonaligned pages, and 7,436 posts from 373 left-leaning pages.

We replicated this methodology for the June 6-7 update, compiling and reviewing content posted between 11:45 a.m. EDT June 5, 2020, and 11:45 a.m. EDT June 8, 2020. 

Charts by John Whitehouse, research support provided by Courtney Hagle and Cydney Hargis.

Correction (6/10/20): The updated methodology originally stated that the additional search began on June 6 rather than June 5.