Why the right wing has a massive advantage on Facebook

[Coventina]

Throughout 2020, Democrats have denounced Facebook with growing ferocity as a "right wing echo chamber" with a “conservative bias” that’s giving an edge to Donald Trump in November.

But Facebook says there's a reason why right-wing figures are driving more engagement. It's not that its algorithm favors conservatives — the company has long maintained that its platform is neutral. Instead, the right is better at connecting with people on a visceral level, the company says.

“Right-wing populism is always more engaging," a Facebook executive said in a recent interview with POLITICO reporters, when pressed why the pages of conservatives drive such high interactions. The person said the content speaks to "an incredibly strong, primitive emotion" by touching on such topics as "nation, protection, the other, anger, fear."

"That was there in the [19]30's. That's not invented by social media — you just see those reflexes mirrored in social media, they’re not created by social media," the executive added. "It's why tabloids do better than the [Financial Times], and it's also a human thing. People respond to engaging emotion much more than they do to, you know, dry coverage. ...This wasn't invented 15 years ago when Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook."

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/26/facebook-conservatives-2020-421146?

Facebook will never, ever take any responsibility....

[Roland99]

1. Mark Levin got a big smackdown!

Link to tweet

[Le Roi de Pot]

8. Mark Levin is an Idiot's idea of a scholar

I tried listening to the guy for a couple years hoping that he would die of heart attack while yelling on his Radio show. But his heart is much stronger than his logic.

[Claustrum]

2. Not only that they don't take responsibility. They actively lean toward the party that says no check

on them. I kind of get it though, why would they back the party (democratic party) that wants some responsibility from them while the other (republican) lets them do whatever they do?

[Initech]

3. It's called "propaganda". Trump is equal parts Stalin and Hitler.

Since he only talks to Fox News and OANN, he's essentially created a propaganda pipeline.

[TheRealNorth]

4. I have been thinking about this

I think the issue is Facebook has become a community where the right is free to trade in disinformation with little push back, and I believe most politically engaged folks on the left just unplug from it. We have been trying to get the corporation to police itself, but I think part of the problem is the misinformation doesn't come just from the advertisers, but the users itself who pick up some RW b.s. from OAN, Breitbart, and elsewhere.

I think the only way forward is to turn Facebook to a partisan cesspool - don't let it be a "safe space" for Republicans to go and be validated for their believes while Democrats and Independents are bombarded with conservative misinformation.

Figuratively speaking, burn Facebook down. Maybe what comes after can be built better.

[maxsolomon]

5. "Engaging Emotion"? "Dry Coverage"?

Fight or Flight responses are among the most basic reactions we have. To exploit those emotions with disinformation is a hallmark of Fascism.

But, whatever, Facebook, it's just Democracy!

[msongs]

6. I never see any right winger/trump ads on facebook. their ads show you what u already believe IMO nt

[Buckeye_Democrat]

7. I believe it! That's what I witnessed in the 80's...

... when I first heard Rush Limbaugh on the portable radio of a factory coworker, who was playing it on an outdoor picnic table during lunch break.

Him and the other guys were lowly-paid, stupid and angry, and they clearly loved the ANGER that Limbaugh was projecting over the airwaves.

The messaging was almost meaningless to them, at least back then. What mattered to them was the ANGER from the guy on the radio.

[Midnight Writer]

9. Same here. I started hearing co-workers in my service job quoting Rush Limbaugh.

Some of these guys, it was the only thing you would hear out of them.

Every sentence began "Rush Limbaugh says..."

Then they started carrying radios so they could listen to rush at work.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

10. Yep, and my former coworkers struck me as...

... mostly apolitical back then, knowing almost nothing about how government operates. They just liked to hear the angry guy on the radio, forming an emotional connection with him.

I'm sure that Limbaugh's messaging eventually seeped into their brains, but that wasn't the initial draw for them.

[Midnight Writer]

11. Exactly. These were guys (all men) who never talked politics.

The topics of discussion before that were sports and country music.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

12. Same observations for me!

Yet I never imagined back then that this new Limbaugh guy would remain on the radio for more than a couple years, let alone that he'd still be broadcast now!

[dawg]

13. When there's no accountability, liars have a natural advantage.

It has nothing to do with engaging people emotionally. We're engaged emotionally. They don't even begin to know how engaged we are emotionally.

[FakeNoose]

14. I'm on FB occasionally, and I just block them all

It's actually easy to block them, and if they're "friends" you can "unfriend" them. If you don't like their posts you can unsubscribe or cancel notifications.

It's so easy for people to ignore the RWNJ junk, and that's how they get away with it. The only people who actually read their junk are people who want it. It's ignored by everyone I know.