Facebook and Politics

Facebook’s recent censorship controversy–a report alleged the team that picks “trending” stories excluded some with a conservative bent–raised questions about how users consume political content. Here, insights from Pew data:

51%

Proportion of liberal Democrats who had recently read election news on Facebook, compared with just 34% of conservative Republicans and 28% of moderate Democrats.

47%

Proportion of consistently conservative users who say the political posts they see on Facebook are mostly in line with their views, compared with 32% of consistent liberals and 23% of all users surveyed.

44%

Percentage of consistent liberals who have hidden, blocked, defriended or unfollowed someone over a political post they disagreed with, compared with 31% of consistent conservatives and 26% of all users.

67%

Proportion of consistent conservatives who pay attention to political posts on Facebook, compared with 60% of consistent liberals and 49% of those with mixed ideological views.

–Sarah Begley