Anti-conservative social media bias claims don’t hold up, new research says

In fact, claims of anti-conservative bias are themselves a form of online disinformation that Republicans have sought to wield to turn their supporters against Big Tech, according to researchers at the Center for Business and Human Rights at New York University’s Stern School of Business.

“The deception whips up part of the conservative base, much of which already bitterly distrusts the mainstream media,” wrote the report’s author, Paul M. Barrett. “To call the bias claim disinformation does not, of course, rule out that millions of everyday people sincerely believe it.”…

Of the 10 media outlets that performed best on Facebook from Jan. 1 of last year through Election Day, only three — Fox News, the Daily Caller and Breitbart — were right-leaning. But they outperformed the other seven outlets on the list, including CNN and The New York Times, by nearly 20 million interactions, the report found.

The NYU report also compared Facebook likes, shares and comments on Donald Trump’s and Joe Biden’s pages from Sept. 3, 2020, to Election Day, the most intense part of the campaign, and found Trump dominant. The total number of likes, comments and shares for both presidential candidates was 307 million. Trump elicited 87 percent of the engagement, Biden 13 percent.