Opiniontrump And His Voters Are Drawn Together By A Shared Sense Of Defiance
Americans in general have begun to catch on: 66 percent of Americans believe that the media has a hard time separating fact from opinion and, according to a recent Gallup poll, 62 percent of the country believes that the press is biased one way or the other in their reporting.
So when CNN, NBC News, Fox News, or another outlet break a hard news story, there is a good chance that a large swathe of the public wont view it as legitimate news.
And politicians, right and left, are taking advantage of this.
The entire ordeal is part of an ever-growing list of examples in which the media seemed to be biased, whether consciously or not, against Republicans.
Before Donald Trump, there was New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who in 2014 accused the media of dividing us because they asked him about some protesters who had chanted “NYPD is the KKK” and . He also accused the media of McCarthyism when they dug into the personal life of an aide of his, who reportedly had a relationship with a convicted murderer. The mayor also publicly and privately accused Bloomberg News of being biased against him, since it is owned by his predecessor. However, de Blasio is not terribly popular within his own party, so Democrats in New York did not buy what he was selling.
What To Watch For
The NYU report makes a series of recommendations for social media companies and the Biden administration to address the suspicions of anti-right bias, including giving more explanation for content moderation actions, letting users choose between different algorithms and creating a new Digital Regulatory Agency dedicated to social media oversight. The researchers also predict conservatives are unlikely to actually leave major sites like Twitter and Facebook because of their perceived biases. Conservatives like the wide platform those sites offer, researchers said, and appear to relish wielding the bias-claim cudgel, even though its based on distortions and falsehoods.
The Technology 202: New Report Calls Conservative Claims Of Social Media Censorship ‘a Form Of Disinformation’
with Aaron Schaffer
A new report concludes that social networks aren’t systematically biased against conservatives, directly contradicting Republican claims that social media companies are censoring them.;
Recent moves by Twitter and Facebook to suspend former president Donald Trump’s accounts in the wake of the violence at the Capitol are inflaming conservatives’ attacks on Silicon Valley. But New York University researchers today released a report stating claims of anti-conservative bias are a form of disinformation: a falsehood with no reliable evidence to support it.;
The report found there is no trustworthy large-scale data to support these claims, and even anecdotal examples that tech companies are biased against conservatives crumble under close examination. The report’s authors said, for instance, the companies’ suspensions of Trump were reasonable given his repeated violation of their terms of service and if anything, the companies took a hands-off approach for a long time given Trump’s position.
The report also noted several data sets underscore the prominent place conservative influencers enjoy on social media. For instance, CrowdTangle data shows that right-leaning pages dominate the list of sources providing the most engaged-with posts containing links on Facebook. Conservative commentator Dan Bongino, for instance, far out-performed most major news organizations in the run-up to the 2020 election.;
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Republicans Are Far More Likely Than Democrats To Say Major Tech Companies Favor The Views Of Liberals Over Conservatives At The Same Time Partisans Differ On Whether Social Media Companies Should Flag Inaccurate Information On Their Platforms
Pew Research Center has been studying the role of technology and technology companies in Americans lives for many years. This study was conducted to understand Americans views about the role of major technology companies in the political landscape. For this analysis, we surveyed 4,708 U.S. adults from June 16 to 22, 2020. Everyone who took part is a member of the Centers American Trends Panel , an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATPs methodology.
Here are the questions used for this report, along with responses, and its methodology.
Americans have complicated feelings about their relationship with big technology companies. While they have appreciated the impact of technology over recent decades and rely on these companies products to communicate, shop and get news, many have also grown critical of the industry and have expressed concerns about the executives who run them.
Debates about censorship grew earlier this summer following Twitters from President Donald Trump as misleading. This prompted some of the presidents supporters to charge that these platforms are censoring conservative voices.
Top House Republican Opposes Bipartisan Commission To Investigate Capitol Riot
But McCarthy replied by opposing Katkos product, and more than 80% of the other House Republicans did too. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., initially said he was keeping an open mind but then announced that he too was opposed. This makes it highly unlikely that 10 of McConnells GOP colleagues will be willing to add their votes to the Democrats and defeat a filibuster of the bill.
Republicans have argued that two Senate committees are already looking at the events of Jan. 6, as House panels have done as well. The Justice Department is pursuing cases against hundreds of individuals who were involved. Former President Donald Trump and others have said any commission ought to also be tasked to look at street protests and violence that took place in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd.
But with all that on the table, several Republicans have alluded to their concern about a new commission dragging on into 2022, the year of the next midterm elections. A lot of our members want to be moving forward, said Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., the No. 2 Senate Republican toMcConnell. Anything that gets us rehashing to 2020 elections is, I think, a day lost.
Resistance even after 9/11
The Taliban were toppled but bin Laden escaped, and U.S. forces have been engaged there ever since. The troop numbers have declined in recent years, and President Biden has indicated that all combat troops will be out by this years anniversary of the 2001 attacks.
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The Actual Reason Why Republicans And Their Media Are Discouraging People From Getting Vaccinated
Dr. Anthony Fauci told Jake Tapper on CNN last Sunday, I dont have a really good reason why this is happening.
But even if he cant think of a reason why Republicans would trash talk vaccination and people would believe them, its definitely there.
Which is why its important to ask a couple of simple questions that all point to the actual reason why Republicans and their media are discouraging people from getting vaccinated:
1. Why did Trump get vaccinated in secret after Joe Biden won the election and his January 6th coup attempt failed?
2. Why are Fox Newspersonalities discouraging people from getting vaccinated while refusing to say if they and the people they work with have been protected by vaccination?
3. Why was one of the biggest applause lines at CPAC: They were hoping the government was hoping that they could sort of sucker 90% of the population into getting vaccinated and it isnt happening!
Death is their electoral strategy.
Is there any other possible explanation?
So, whats left?
Censorship Of Conservative Content
Tech companies and social media sites have been accused of censorship by some conservative groups, although there is little or no evidence to support these claims.
At least one conservative theme, that of climate change denialism, is over-represented in the media, and some scientists have argued that media outlets have not done enough to combat false information. In November 2013, Nathan Allen, a PhD chemist and moderator on Reddit‘s science forum published an op-ed that argued that newspaper editors should refrain from publishing articles from people who deny the scientific consensus on climate change.
Shadow banning
Claims of shadow banning of conservative social media accounts were brought to the fore in 2016 when conservative news sites lashed out after a report from an unnamed Facebook employee on May 7 alleged that contractors for the social media giant were told to minimize links to their sites in its “trending news” column. The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard investigated and found no evidence of shadow-banning of conservatives.
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Despite Cries Of Censorship Conservatives Dominate Social Media
GOP-friendly voices far outweigh liberals in driving conversations on hot topics leading up to the election, a POLITICO analysis shows.
The Twitter app on a mobile phone | Matt Rourke/AP Photo
10/27/2020 01:38 PM EDT
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Link Copied
Republicans have turned alleged liberal bias in Silicon Valley into a major closing theme of the election cycle, hauling tech CEOs in for virtual grillings on Capitol Hill while President Donald Trump threatens legal punishment for companies that censor his supporters.
But a POLITICO analysis of millions of social media posts shows that conservatives still rule online.
Right-wing social media influencers, conservative media outlets and other GOP supporters dominate online discussions around two of the elections hottest issues, the Black Lives Matter movement and voter fraud, according to the review of Facebook posts, Instagram feeds, Twitter messages and conversations on two popular message boards. And their lead isnt close.
As racial protests engulfed the nation after George Floyds death, users shared the most-viral right-wing social media content more than 10 times as often as the most popular liberal posts, frequently associating the Black Lives Matter movement with violence and accusing Democrats like Joe Biden of supporting riots.
Trump Continues To Push Election Falsehoods Heres Why That Matters
Republican opposition to the commission
Rice was featured in one of the very few congressional commissions ever to receive this level of attention. Most are created and live out their mission with little notice. Indeed, Congress has created nearly 150 commissions of various kinds in just the last 30 years, roughly five a year.
Some have a highly specific purpose, such as a commemoration. Others are more administrative, such as the five-member commission overseeing the disbursement of business loans during the early months of pandemic lockdown in 2020. Others have been wide-ranging and controversial, such as the one created to investigate synthetic opioid trafficking.
In the initial weeks after the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, the idea of an independent commission to probe the origins of the attack and the failures that let it happen seemed a no-brainer. It had broad support both in Congress and in public opinion polls. It still enjoys the latter, as about two-thirds of Americans indicate that they think an independent commission is needed. The idea has fared well particularly when described as being 9/11 Commission style.
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Its Time To End This Forever War Biden Says Forces To Leave Afghanistan By 9/11
The enormous national anger generated by those attacks was also channeled by the administration toward the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, which was conceived to prevent any recurrence of attacks on such a massive scale. Arguments over that legislation consumed Congress through much of 2002 and became the fodder for campaign ads in that years midterms.
The same anger was also directed toward a resolution to use force, if needed, in dealing with security threats from the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. That authorization passed Congress with bipartisan majorities in the fall of 2002, driven by administration claims that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. It became law weeks before the midterm elections.
Once those elections were over, the Republicans in control of both chambers finally agreed to create an independent commission to seek answers about 9/11. Bush signed the legislation on Nov. 27, 2002.
The beginning was hobbled when the first chairman, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and vice chairman, former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell of Maine, decided not to continue. But a new chairman, former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, and vice chairman, former Rep. Lee Hamilton of Indiana, filled the breach and performed to generally laudatory reviews.
Long memories
The American Mainstream News Media May Be More Biased Than We Think
Barely a day goes by without President Trump firing off an angry tweet referring to the fake news media. But what do we know about actual political bias in the media? Eric Merkley studied 400,000 news stories published over three decades and has found that the tone of economic news is more favorable during Democratic presidencies compared to Republican administrations.
Since even before his election over two years ago, President Donald Trump and his Republican surrogates have made a habit of responding to critical news coverage with allegations that mainstream press reports are fake news. This allegation, regardless of how often it is repeated, has been shown to be fundamentally without merit.
However, there has also been a long history of complaints from conservative elites that journalists are biased against conservatives and the Republican Party in their reporting for mainstream news outlets. There is evidence that most journalists identify with the Democratic Party and as ideologicalliberals. Consequently, these allegations cannot be so easily dismissed.
In new research, I find evidence of considerable bias against Republican presidential administrations in mainstream economic news content.;
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Elections To Watch In 2021
In its study of the media landscape in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election cycle, the Pew Research Center found that of the 30 news sources it asked about, only Fox News was trusted by a majority of Republicans. This finding stands in stark contrast with the views of Democrats, who said they trusted a variety of news sources, and it marks a further decline in Republicans trust of other news sources since Pew last conducted a similar survey in 2014.
This is in part because animosity toward the other party is at an all-time high and Republicans increasingly associate the news media with the Democratic Party. That means they are more likely to dismiss a source that isnt Fox News as politically biased. For example, in a among people who said they voted for then-President Trump in 2020, a staggering 92 percent strongly or somewhat agreed that the mainstream media today is just a part of the Democratic Party.
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Views About Whether Social Media Companies Should Label Posts On Their Platforms As Inaccurate Are Sharply Divided Along Political Lines
Americans are divided over whether social media companies should label posts on their sites as inaccurate or misleading, with most being skeptical that these sites can accurately determine what content should be flagged.
Some 51% of Americans say they strongly or somewhat approve of social media companies labeling posts from elected officials on their platforms as inaccurate or misleading, while a similar share say they at least somewhat disapprove of this.
Democrats and Republicans hold contrasting views about the appropriateness of social media companies flagging inaccurate information on their platforms. Fully 73% of Democrats say they strongly or somewhat approve of social media companies labeling posts on their platforms from elected officials as inaccurate or misleading, versus 25% who disapprove.
These sentiments are nearly reversed for Republicans: 71% say they disapprove of social media companies engaging in this type of labeling, including about four-in-ten who say they strongly disapprove. Just 27% say they approve of this labeling.
Liberal Democrats stand out as being the most supportive of this practice: 85% of this group say they approve of social media companies labeling elected officials posts as inaccurate or misleading, compared with 64% of conservative or moderate Democrats and even smaller shares of moderate or liberal Republicans and conservative Republicans .
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The Capitol Siege: The Arrested And Their Stories
It would only be logical for that memory to inform the imagination of any Republican contemplating a similar independent commission to probe what happened on Jan. 6. The commission would likely look at various right-wing groups that were involved, including the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, some members of which have already been charged. The commission might also delve into the social media presence and influence of various white supremacists.
Moreover, just as the 9/11 Commission was expected to interview the current and preceding presidents, so might a new commission pursue testimony from Trump and some of his advisers, both official and otherwise, regarding their roles in the protest that wound up chasing members of Congress from both chambers into safe holding rooms underground.
House Minority Leader McCarthy was asked last week whether he would testify if a commission were created and called on him to discuss his conversations with Trump on Jan. 6.
Sure, McCarthy replied. Next question.
All this may soon be moot. If Senate Democrats are unable to secure 60 votes to overcome an expected filibuster of the House-passed bill, the measure will die and the questions to be asked will fall to existing congressional committees, federal prosecutors and the media. To some degree, all can at least claim to have the same goals and intentions as an independent commission might have.
The difference is the level of acceptance their findings are likely to have with the public.
