Research/Study
New data shows conservatives are still not being censored on Facebook, even as engagement with political pages declines
In a three-year study of Facebook pages that post about U.S. news and politics, right-leaning pages earned more total interactions than left-leaning or ideologically nonaligned pages
Published
A three-year Media Matters study of engagement data for Facebook pages that regularly post about U.S. news and politics found that right-leaning pages earned more total interactions than either left-leaning or ideologically nonaligned pages between January 1, 2020, and December 31, 2022. Notably, right-leaning pages vastly outpaced the performance of left-leaning or nonaligned pages in both 2020 and 2021, and interactions for pages across the ideological spectrum declined in 2022. These findings contradict right-wing claims that the platform is censoring conservative accounts and viewpoints.
Other key findings include:
- In 2020 and 2021, right-leaning pages earned more total interactions on their posts than either left-leaning or ideologically nonaligned pages — even though nonaligned pages posted more.
- In 2022, ideologically nonaligned pages slightly outpaced right-leaning ones, earning 2% more total interactions than right-leaning pages — in part because nonaligned pages had millions more posts. In fact, right-leaning pages earned more than three times as many interactions per post on average that year.
- Of the top 10 pages to earn the most total interactions on their posts over the three-year period, half are right-leaning. Just two are left-leaning.
- During the three-year period, 6 of the top 10 posts that earned the most interactions are from right-leaning pages — 5 of those are from pages affiliated with right-wing media outlet The Epoch Times.
- Despite being banned from posting on his Facebook page for most of 2021 and all of 2022, former President Donald Trump’s page was still the 4th highest performing political page over the three-year time frame.