President-elect Joe Biden says 'it's an embarrassment' that President Donald Trump is still refusing to concede the presidential race. USA TODAY
A former Democrat-turned-Trump supporter from Knightstown, Indiana, Gayla Baer-Taylor's blood pressure rose every time Facebook and Twitter fact-checked and restricted claims by President Donald Trump and other Republicans that the November election was rigged.
A couple weeks ago, Facebook put a notice referring users to official election results on one of her posts:"I'm going to need a MUCH bigger swear jar before President Trump completes his second term."
When did we get so stupid that we need social media to tell us what to think? she told USA TODAY.
A recent poll shows that majorities in both parties think political censorship is likely occurring on social media, but that belief is most prevalent on the political right. And,with the country in the throes of an unparalleled attempt by a sitting president to overturn the election and hold onto the White House, its growing.
Researchers say theyve found no evidence to support GOP grievances thatthe nations leading social media companies squelchconservative voices.
I know of no academic research that concludes there is a systemic bias liberal or conservative in either the content moderation policies or in the prioritization of content by algorithms by major social media platforms," said Steven Johnson, an information technology professor at the University of Virginia McIntire School of Commerce.
"If anything, Johnson said, there is evidence that content from highly conservative news sites is favored by Facebook algorithms.
Georgia Senate runoffs:With Senate on the line, Georgia activists are sliding into voters' DMs before election
Twitter to transfer @POTUS handle: Twitter to automatically transfer @POTUS handle from Trump to Biden on Inauguration Day
An analysis of millions of social media posts by Politico and the nonpartisan think tank Institute for Strategic Dialogue found that right-wing social media influencers, media outlets and other GOP supporters drove the online conversation about the Black Lives Matter movement and voter fraud, two of the most heated election issues.
According to research Johnson conducted with his University of Virginia colleagues Brent Kitchens and Peter Gray, typical conservative users, in months when they visited Facebook more than usual, read news that was about 30% more conservative than the online news they would typically read.Moreover, we found that Facebook usage is five times more polarizing for conservatives than for liberals, he said.
Facebook, Johnsonsaid, prioritizes content that is more engaging which is often more partisan content.
Facebook told Politico in September that right-wing personalities have a distinct advantage on the platform, not because thealgorithms favor conservatives, but because they connect with people on a visceral level.
Right-wing populism is always more engaging," a Facebook executive told Politico, when asked why Dan Bongino and Ben Shapiro drive such high engagement. The executive said the content speaks to "an incredibly strong, primitive emotion" by touching on such topics as "nation, protection, the other, anger, fear."
A supporter of President Trump yells at counterprotesters across the street during a rally to protest the election results outside the Georgia State Capitol on Nov. 14. President-elect Joe Biden has been declared the winner in Georgia, becoming the first Democratic nominee to win the state since 1992.(Photo: Elijah Nouvelage, Getty Images)
Researchers agree that algorithms dont have a political affiliation or party. Instead, algorithmsfavor content that elicits strong reactions from users, keeping them hooked so Facebook and Twitter can sell more advertising revenue.
A former Facebook employee, Adam Conner, now vice president of tech policy at the liberal Center for American Progress Action, told Politico that its absurd for Facebook to say this is just something thats playing out in a neutral way.
Facebook is not a mirror, he said. The news-feed algorithm is an accelerant.
The perception that social media is biasedhas been around for a long time but intensified in recent years asthe president made social media abuses a major plank of his administration and reelection campaign.
Nine in 10 Republicans and independents who lean toward the Republican Party say its at least somewhat likely that social media platforms censor political viewpoints they find objectionable, up slightly from 85% in 2018, according to an August report from the Pew Research Center.
With 89 million followers on Twitter and nearly 35 million on Facebook, Trump wields one of social medias largest megaphoneswhich will help him shape the national conversation long after he leaves office.
Every year, countless Americans are banned, blacklisted, and silenced through arbitrary or malicious enforcement of ever-shifting rules, Trump said during a September appearance with Attorney General William Barr.
Francesca Tripodi, an assistant professor in the University of North Carolinas School of Information and Library Science, says the bias accusations grew out of similar allegations against the mainstream media.
Part of it definitely stems from a larger distrust in institutions and access to information, said Tripodi, a senior faculty researcher with UNCs Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life. Part of it is linked to the overall opaqueness of the platforms.
Underlying it all is growing discomfort with a small cabal of megacompanies controlling the nations online conversation.
Some right-wing personalities including radio host Mark Levin and Fox News host Sean Hannity have joinedsocial media alternatives like Parler where pro-Trump conspiracy theories and unfounded allegations of voter fraud trend unfettered.
I think there is definitely merit behind this question: Do we really want such a small number of corporations controlling such a wide swath of how we access information? Tripodisaid.
Fueling the current outrage are high-profile cases of platforms flagging content or banning accounts, Johnson said.
Trump has consistently pushed the boundaries of what is allowed by these platforms things that would cause other accounts to be banned have been allowed due to a different policy for national leaders, Johnsonsaid. Once the social media platforms started adding labels on misleading and false content from high-profile users like Trump, the complaints of bias have grown even louder.
Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, confronted Twitter's Jack Dorsey in a recent Senate hearing over Facebook and Twitter throttlingthe spread of a New York Post article which made uncorroborated claims about Hunter Bidens business dealings.
Who the hell elected you and put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report and what the American people are allowed to hear? Cruzsaid.
Researchers say many groups across the political spectrum feel their opinions and perspectives are under siege fromsocial media, but its difficult to make the casethat the platforms are biased against any group since they disclose so little about how they decide what content is allowed and what is not.
Dorsey and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg say their platforms strike a balance between promoting free expression and removing hate, abuse and misinformation fromtheir platforms. Theyacknowledge making some enforcement errors but say their policies are applied fairly to everyone.
Baer-Taylor, whose Twitter bio jokes she'sPresident Elect Gayla, doesn't buy it.In her MAGA-infusedworld, social media has always been unfair to conservatives. I see it and experience it a lot, she said.
According to Baer-Taylor, increased censorship of right-wing voices during the COVID-19 pandemic and the presidential election helped hijack the vote to tip the election to Joe Biden.
Also frustrated is Krishnan Seshasayee, 47, an IT architect and Trump supporter from Illinois who leans Republican but worked on Obamas campaign in 2008 and donated to Tulsi Gabbard's campaign this election cycle.
Seshasayee believes social media should be treated as a tool that gives people a voice, like a mic or a pen.
Would a megaphone suppress the speech of the speaker? Would a pen suppress the thought flow of a writer? he said. It will best serve the people and themselves when they just remain as a platform to express opinions without judging the content of posts.
Facebook and Twitter have held meetings with high-profile conservatives to fend off persistent accusations of liberal bias, fueling speculationthat Dorsey and Zuckerberg were trying to appease Trump and keep out of his crosshairs.
Twitters Dorsey told lawmakers in Novemberthat the platforms should be more open with users about how content moderation decisions are made and should offer a straightforward way to appeal moderation decisions. Hed also like to see users be able to opt out of algorithms that determine what content they see on the platform.
But conservative author Denise McAllister says greater transparency wont help.
The platforms are not capable of consistently or fairly moderating content, so the only way to restore public trust is to get out of the content moderation business except in the case of violent threats or other illegal activities, even during election cycles when partisan propaganda and misinformation spreads wildly, she argues.
This is a platform, right? You don't need to act like mama Twitter or mama Facebook. Just let people say what they are going to say, whether its true, false, whatever. You have to just trust the people as individuals and not to try to impose power because you are going to do it inconsistently, said McAllister, author of What Men Want to Say to Women (But Cant) and "Spygate: The Attempted Sabotage of Donald J. Trump.
Knock off your good intentions and stop trying to do something you are not going to be able to accomplish and just deal with the fact that liberty is messy, free speech is going to offend everybody," she said. "One way or another, everyone needs to put their big girl panties on and their big boy panties on and just deal with it and stop trying to protect everyones feelings.
Autoplay
Show Thumbnails
Show Captions
Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2020/11/30/donald-trump-facebook-twitter-censor-censorship-conservatives-election/6349142002/
Here is the original post:
- OIF Seeks Information on 2020 Censorship Incidents | News and Press Center - ala.org - December 5th, 2020
- In India, a Clash of Digital Innovation and Internet Censorship - CoinDesk - Coindesk - November 30th, 2020
- Censored Planet: University of Michigan research finds worldwide increase in internet censorship - WSWS - November 30th, 2020
- Twitter claims it has reversed ban of link to Sidney Powell's Georgia election lawsuit - Fox Business - November 30th, 2020
- Jeanine Pirro Thinks Big Tech is Censoring Her Text Messages - Mediaite - November 30th, 2020
- Censorship In The Biden Era - OpEd - Eurasia Review - November 30th, 2020
- Ex-Employee Confesses! Behind-the-Scenes of Google Censorship - The Liberty Web English - November 30th, 2020
- The attempt to censor Jordan Peterson shows the intolerance of the social justice generation - Telegraph.co.uk - November 30th, 2020
- PlayStation Reportedly Censoring PS5 Users on Twitter - ComicBook.com - November 30th, 2020
- Ted Nugents Wife Shemane Targets Instagram For The Recent Censor But She Puts It Again On Instagram To Find A Solution For Free Speech - Metalhead... - November 30th, 2020
- Censorship - Wikipedia - November 28th, 2020
- What Is Censorship? | American Civil Liberties Union - November 28th, 2020
- What is Censorship? - National Coalition Against Censorship - November 28th, 2020
- Censorship on social media? It's not what you think - CBS News - November 28th, 2020
- 'Welcome To The Party, Zoom': Video App's Rules Lead To Accusations Of Censorship - NPR - November 28th, 2020
- ICANN Can Stand Against Censorship (And Avoid Another .ORG Debacle) by Keeping Content Regulation and Other Dangerous Policies Out of Its Registry... - November 28th, 2020
- Ted Cruz digs in for congressional battle over censorship on Twitter, Facebook - Houston Chronicle - November 28th, 2020
- The Dangerous Inversions of the Debate Around Trans Censorship - The New Republic - November 28th, 2020
- Carter Estes: Effort to ban Trump officials from Harvard is a dangerous attack on free speech and education - Fox News - November 28th, 2020
- Meet the Censored: Andre Damon - WSWS - November 28th, 2020
- Donald Trump says Twitter censorship is a national security issue - Washington Times - November 28th, 2020
- In hybrid online-offline format, theatre fest explores the Unexpressed, censorship of womens bodies and artistic collaborations - The Indian Express - November 28th, 2020
- Was this censorship?: Noam Chomsky, Vijay Prashad ask Tata Lit Live after it cancels their discussion - The Hindu - November 28th, 2020
- Tata Lit Fest cancels a discussion between Noam Chomsky and Vijay Prashad, raising concerns of censorship - Frontline - November 28th, 2020
- Barcelona members strike back vs. Bartomeu: What does 'motion of censorship' mean, and what's next? - ESPN - September 18th, 2020
- What the *, Nintendo? This in-game censorship is * terrible. - EFF - September 18th, 2020
- Social media censorship in Egypt targets women on TikTok - The World - September 18th, 2020
- Trumps Partial TikTok And WeChat Ban Tip-Toes Into Chinese-Style Censorship - Forbes - September 18th, 2020
- Judd Apatow Criticizes Hollywood's Censorship For International Market: China Has Bought Our Silence With Their Money - Deadline - September 18th, 2020
- Bangladesh in the Shadow of Censorship The Diplomat - The Diplomat - September 18th, 2020
- Why is the government pushing unprecedented online censorship? - Telegraph.co.uk - September 18th, 2020
- Not Content to Censor Conservatives, Zuckerberg Now Seeks to Meddle in Election - National Legal and Policy Center - September 18th, 2020
- New Alliance to Track and Fight Censoring of Conservatives - CBN News - September 18th, 2020
- Reading the Evolution of Censorship and Sedition in India - The Wire - September 18th, 2020
- China's Influence on the Global Human Rights System - Human Rights Watch - September 18th, 2020
- China Isn't Hiding the Border Tensions With India From Its Public Anymore - The Diplomat - September 18th, 2020
- Call Trumps Attacks On The 1619 Project What They Are Censorship of American History - Forbes - September 6th, 2020
- Facebook is bringing an updated content censorship term for its users from October 1st - Digital Information World - September 6th, 2020
- Will Joe Rogan Have The Guts To Call Out Spotify For 'Censorship'? - CCN.com - September 6th, 2020
- Joe Rogans Spotify move condemned by fans over right-wing censorship claims - The Independent - September 6th, 2020
- Shadow banning and its role in modern day censorship - Cherwell Online - September 6th, 2020
- Apple reacts to censorship censure - Mobile World Live - September 6th, 2020
- TunnelBear Circumvents Iran VPN Block, Launches 10GB Monthly Offer in the Country - Business Wire - September 6th, 2020
- Facebook is changing its Terms of Service, and users are not happy - Windows Central - September 6th, 2020
- End the blacklist of the World Socialist Web Site on Reddit! - WSWS - September 6th, 2020
- Kahle: Upholding the public trust - The Register-Guard - September 6th, 2020
- Science protections must be enforceable | TheHill - The Hill - September 6th, 2020
- Reddit isnt happy about President Trumps anti-censorship executive order - Reclaim The Net - September 6th, 2020
- Forget TikTok. Chinas Powerhouse App Is WeChat. - The New York Times - September 6th, 2020
- The shaky upcoming national election environment can be fixed - JNS.org - September 6th, 2020
- Kyle Rittenhouse lawyer Lin Wood threatens to sue Twitter over censorship - Reclaim The Net - September 4th, 2020
- Finding human territory in a fractured world - The Tech - September 4th, 2020
- We dont believe in censorship: Controversial Aboriginal commentator to lead WA festival amid fear of backlash from Noongar people - WAtoday - September 4th, 2020
- How WeChat Censored the Coronavirus Pandemic - WIRED - August 28th, 2020
- Voter Advocacy Orgs Sue Trump Administration for Executive Order Threatening Social Media Censorship - EFF - August 28th, 2020
- Kuwait eases censorship laws after banning 5000 titles in last 7 years - The Indian Express - August 28th, 2020
- Buffy's Amber Benson on censorship, the musical, and Tara's death - digitalspy.com - August 28th, 2020
- Kuwait relaxes book censorship laws after banning thousands of titles - The Guardian - August 28th, 2020
- Film and Publications Amendment Act: Protecting, not censoring, our citizens in the digital age - Daily Maverick - August 28th, 2020
- Chinas wrath on Hong Kong is causing artists to self-censor - Reclaim The Net - August 28th, 2020
- Here are 5 excuses liberals have put forward in defence of modern day book burning, and why it makes them look like total morons - OpIndia - August 28th, 2020
- Jessie and Austins aunt vs TikTok the debate around censorship of Bodies in the Suitcase video - HITC - August 28th, 2020
- Artists Ai Weiwei and Fang Fang's depictions of the Wuhan lockdown - DW (English) - August 28th, 2020
- A Radioactive Plague: The secrecy and censorship surrounding civilian deaths from World War II - Milwaukee Independent - August 10th, 2020
- Censorship on the internet in 2020: The potential effects of TikTok - Film Daily - August 10th, 2020
- Wicker: Time to address online censorship - The Vicksburg Post - Vicksburg Post - August 10th, 2020
- Open Technology Fund Authorization Act - BORGEN - Borgen Project - August 10th, 2020
- The Logic of a US WeChat Ban - The Diplomat - August 10th, 2020
- Ben Domenech Clashes With Joe Trippi Over Censorship Of Trump's Social Media - The Federalist - August 10th, 2020
- German Analysis Institute Regrets Censorship of a Professional Science Assertion - The Shepherd of the Hills Gazette - August 10th, 2020
- China Is Upgrading Its Great Firewall And Can Now Censor Even More Content - News18 - August 10th, 2020
- Twitter censors all links to BitChute - Reclaim The Net - August 10th, 2020
- Fear of Authoritarian Regimes Is Pushing the Film Industry to Self-Censor - Foreign Affairs Magazine - August 10th, 2020
- Facebook is wrong to censor Donald Trump - The Spectator USA - August 10th, 2020
- Education, not censorship, must be used to tackle online antisemitism - The Jerusalem Post - August 10th, 2020
- Why Did Facebook Censor This Video Of President Trump? - The Hayride - August 10th, 2020
- Lawyer concerned that 'internet censorship bill' may be used as a political tool - CapeTalk - August 10th, 2020
- Brother Nut, the Artist, Taking Vow of Silence to Protest Chinas Censorship - VOA Asia - August 8th, 2020
- Researchers slowly discover censorship doesnt work - Reclaim The Net - August 8th, 2020
- Setlist: Wiley, Twitter and the online censorship debate - Complete Music Update - August 8th, 2020