Research/Study
Right-wing talking points get most engagement in Facebook posts about voting, including unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud and attacks on voting by mail
Published
Amid concerns of the impact of COVID-19 on the 2020 U.S. elections, right-leaning Facebook pages are fearmongering about voter fraud and vote by mail, while left-leaning and ideologically nonaligned pages are encouraging people to vote in November. And posts from the former appear to be getting more attention.
Media Matters conducted a study of over 46,000 Facebook posts about voting and the election shared by pages that regularly post content about U.S. news and politics. We found that posts from right-leaning pages earned more engagement than those from nonaligned or left-leaning pages. Right-leaning Facebook pages earned nearly 92 million interactions on posts about voting in the last three months, or more than 51% of all interactions, despite accounting for only 38% of the posts. This study comes after Media Matters has extensively and repeatedly debunked allegations of a bias against right-wing content at Facebook.
Right-wing attacks on and misinformation about mail-in voting have played out on social media, showing a clear distinction between how these platforms treat misinformation about the 2020 U.S. election. Even though both Twitter and Facebook, which also owns Instagram, have said they are committed to protecting the integrity of the U.S. elections and fighting voter suppression on their platforms, only Twitter enforced this policy when President Donald Trump pushed misinformation about mail-in ballots, placing a fact-check label on his tweets. Facebook did not label or remove Trump’s inaccurate posts, and Facebook’s CEO even criticized Twitter for doing so. Facebook has also been profiting off this misinformation as Trump, his campaign, and his allies have run hundreds of Facebook ads pushing claims of voter fraud.
Media Matters analyzed over 46,000 Facebook posts about voting and the 2020 election from right-leaning, nonaligned, and left-leaning Facebook pages that regularly post content about U.S. news and politics between noon EDT on March 12 and noon EDT on June 12 in order to understand narratives being spread within these ecosystems. Key findings include:
- Right-leaning pages earned nearly 92 million interactions on over 17,600 posts, surpassing engagement on posts from both left-leaning and ideologically nonaligned pages.
- Posts from right-leaning pages accounted for 38% of posts about voting, but they earned over 51% of engagement.
- Top posts from right-leaning pages promoted claims of voter fraud, including attacks on vote by mail, among narratives pushing support for Trump and criticizing Democrats and the media.
- Seven of the top 10 posts from right-leaning pages are directly from Trump.
- Nonaligned pages earned over 23 million interactions, which is less than either right-leaning or left-leaning pages, on over 15,200 posts.
- Posts from nonaligned pages accounted for nearly 33% of posts but earned only 13% of engagement.
- Left-leaning pages earned over 63 million interactions on over 13,500 posts.
- Posts from left-leaning pages accounted for over 29% of election posts, which is less than right-leaning and nonaligned pages, and earned over 35% of engagement.
- The Facebook post about voting with the most interactions is from former President Barack Obama, who addressed police brutality and called on people to mobilize in both the streets and at the polls.
- Nonaligned and left-leaning pages mostly encouraged people to vote and amplified criticism of Trump, with none of the top posts from left-leaning pages even referring to vote by mail.