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Article

13 Aug 2019

Author:
Natalie Martinez, Media Matters for America

Despite bias claims, new data shows that Facebook is still not censoring conservatives

CNN reported that President Donald Trump's administration was drafting an executive order calling on the Federal Communications Commission to develop new regulations “clarifying how and when the law protects social media websites when they decide to remove or suppress content on their platforms.” Trump’s order, which specifically targets Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, is intended to address claims of “unproven systemic bias against conservatives by technology platforms.” Trump’s actions come after years of baseless claims from conservative politicians and right-wing media personalities that social media platforms actively suppress and censor right-wing accounts... 

Media Matters has previously published two other studies on political engagement on Facebook that debunked allegations that Facebook was censoring right-leaning pages... A new Media Matters study of 385 Facebook pages that regularly post about American political news found that between March 18 and August 4, 2019, right-leaning and left-leaning pages had virtually the same engagement numbers relative to page size. Media Matters also found that right-leaning pages on average earned more interactions per week than left-leaning pages and pages without political alignment. 

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