On September 3, Facebook announced that it would ban new political ads one week before Election Day, along with taking other measures “to help secure the integrity of the US elections by encouraging voting, connecting people to authoritative information, and reducing the risks of post-election confusion.” On October 7, Facebook expanded its ban to all social issue, electoral, and political ads in the U.S. and eventually extended the timeline to December, saying it would “reduce opportunities for confusion or abuse.”

Following the initial announcement of the ban, experts -- including researchers, journalists, and activists -- quickly pointed out that loopholes in the policies would undermine their effectiveness. Notably, the policies did not ban political candidates from posting misinformation about the election or prematurely claiming victory in posts. Researchers also noted that the policies would actually reward candidates with large followings on Facebook and “benefit far-right and fake news content that spreads organically through engagement.” An analysis of the post data since Election Day demonstrates that they were right to be concerned. Right-leaning pages with millions of page likes earned tens of thousands of interactions on post-election posts with unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud.

In this new study, Media Matters used CrowdTangle data to compile and analyze hundreds of thousands of Facebook posts from right-leaning, left-leaning, and nonaligned pages shared between 6 p.m. EST November 3 and 11:24 a.m. EST November 12. We found that right-leaning pages earned more interactions on their posts than left-leaning or nonaligned pages, with 46% of total interactions, or roughly 350 million interactions, despite accounting for only 27% of the posts. Comparably, left-leaning pages earned over 28% of total interactions (217 million interactions) on roughly 17% of the total posts, and nonaligned pages earned over 25% of total interactions (195 million interactions) on more than 55% of the total posts.

With the exception of November 7, when Biden was projected as the winner of the presidential election, right-leaning pages consistently earned more interactions on their posts each day from Election Day through November 12 compared to left-leaning or nonaligned pages.

Between 6 p.m. EST November 3 and 11:24 a.m. EST November 7 (when CNN became the first outlet to project Biden’s win), right-leaning pages led in overall interactions compared to left-leaning or nonaligned pages. Posts from right-leaning pages earned 46% of total interactions (158.7 million) even though they accounted for only 26% of the total posts. Engagement on posts from left-leaning pages was much lower, earning 28% of total interactions (98.2 million) on only 17% of total posts. Nonaligned pages earned the least engagement with only 26% of total interactions (89.8 million) on 56% of total posts.

Engagement on posts followed a similar pattern after CNN projected Biden as president-elect. Right-leaning pages led in overall interactions compared to left-leaning or nonaligned pages. Posts from right-leaning pages earned over 45% of total interactions (roughly 190.7 million) even though they accounted for only 28% of the posts. Engagement on posts from left-leaning pages was much lower, earning 29% of total interactions (119.5 million) on roughly 17% of total posts. Nonaligned pages accounted for roughly 56% of total posts, but earned the least engagement at only 26% (106.0 million interactions).

From the first polls closing on Election Day to CNN projecting Biden as the winner, Trump earned 27.4 million interactions on 43 posts, or an average of 637,000 interactions per post. These posts accounted for only 0.16% of posts and over 17% of interactions from right-leaning pages. Out of these 43 posts, 9 earned over 1 million interactions each and were among the top 10 posts from all political pages during the time frame. 

Trump’s posts after CNN first projected Biden as president-elect earned over 34.9 million interactions on 77 posts, or an average of 453,000 interactions per post. These posts accounted for only 0.23% of posts and over 18% of interactions from right-leaning pages. Of these 77 posts, 8 earned over 1 million interactions each and were among the top 10 posts from all political pages during the time frame.

Trump’s posts alleging widespread election fraud performed particularly well in spite of the labels Facebook applied to them. Between when the first polls closed on Election Day and 11:24 a.m. EST November 12, Trump’s posts dominated on Facebook, even though the platform added various fact-check labels on many of them for alleging widespread election fraud without any evidence and falsely declaring victory.

Trump’s top posts after the media projected Biden as the winner were similar to his top posts prior to the projection. These posts attempted to undermine the election and its results, falsely declaring victory, alleging widespread election fraud, and trying to delegitimize mail-in ballots:

Posts falsely declaring victory or claiming that he will win

• Trump posted: “A big WIN!” (over 1.1 million interactions).
• Trump claimed victory in Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, and Michigan. (over 1.1 million interactions).
• Trump posted: I WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!” (roughly 2.2 million interactions).
• Trump posted: Georgia will be a big presidential win, as it was the night of the Election!” (over 1.2 million interactions).
• Trump posted: WE ARE MAKING BIG PROGRESS. RESULTS START TO COME IN NEXT WEEK. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” (over 1.2 million interactions).
• Trump posted: “WE WILL WIN!” (over 1.1 million interactions).

Posts promoting unsubstantiated claims of widespread election fraud

• Trump claimed without evidence that there were “surprise ballot dumps” (over 1.1 million interactions).
• Trump falsely claimed “OBSERVERS were not allowed” while votes were counted and called legally cast ballots “ILLEGAL VOTES” (over 1.2 million interactions).
• Trump falsely claimed illegal votes were being counted in Pennsylvania (over 1.2 million interactions).
• Trump falsely claimed that “OBSERVERS WERE NOT ALLOWED INTO COUNTING ROOM” and insinuated fraud (over 1.0 million interactions).
• Trump repeated Fox contributor Newt Gingrich’s comments calling the election stolen and saying, “We believe these people are thieves” (over 1.2 million interactions).
• Trump promoted Fox News programming and claimed host Sean Hannity would expose ballot corruption (over 1.0 million interactions).

Posts delegitimizing mail-in ballots

• Trump posted: ANY VOTE THAT CAME IN AFTER ELECTION DAY WILL NOT BE COUNTED (over 1.5 million interactions).
• Trump said that he saw his “big lead” on Election night “miraculously disappear” due to mail-in ballots being counted (over 1.3 million interactions).

Using CrowdTangle, Media Matters compiled a list of 1,773 Facebook pages that frequently posted about U.S. politics from January 1, 2020, 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 all posts by pages on this list posted between 6 p.m. EST November 3, 2020, and 11:24 a.m. EST November 12, 2020.

We reviewed the data for the resulting 221,164 posts, including total interactions -- reactions, comments, and shares -- using CrowdTangle.