Despite widespread, documented cases of bias against conservative media by social media platforms, Breitbart News and other conservative media have dominated online coverage of the Democrat party primaries, according to Axios.
In an article titled “Axios-NewsWhip 2020 attention tracker: The might of right-wing media,” Axios published data from its online media tracker, which tracks the attention received by individual Democrat presidential candidates from stories shared on social media.
Axios notes the potential impact that conservative dominance is having on emerging narratives about the Democrat candidates. The news website admits that conservative media is “shaping the way a big chunk of the electorate looks at these candidates and exposing potential lines of attack for Trump to exploit.”
The data, gathered by Axios and the social media analytics company Newswhip, shows that even on topics focused on the Democrat primaries, articles from conservative sources like Breitbart News generate significantly more traffic than their left-wing competitors.
This is despite the fact of widely documented bias against conservative media by big tech companies, including algorithm suppression, search engine manipulation, and social media bans of popular internet personalities who previously shared articles from conservative media to their large online followings.
The Axios-Newswhip tracker found that in the past two weeks, 18 of the top 30 stories about the top Democrat presidential candidates came from conservative media. Of those, five were from Breitbart News, five were from Fox News, two were from the Washington Times, two were from The Federalist Papers, one was from the Blaze, one was from the Daily Caller, and one was from Fox Business.
Via Axios:
What’s going on: Over the past two weeks, most of the stories about the candidates leading our tracker that generated the most interactions on Twitter (retweets and likes) and Facebook (reactions, comments and shares) came from conservative sites:
- Joe Biden — 2 of the top 5 articles (Breitbart x2)
- Kamala Harris — 4 of 5 (Fox News x2, Breitbart, The Federalist Papers)
- Cory Booker — 4 of 5 (Fox News, The Federalist Papers, The Blaze, Daily Caller)
- Julián Castro — 4 of 5 (Fox News, Washington Times x2, Breitbart)
- Bernie Sanders — 3 of 5 (Fox Business, Breitbart, Fox News)
- Elizabeth Warren — 1 of 5 (Daily Wire)
For Biden, Harris, Booker and Castro, the top story came from a conservative site.
The Wall Street Journal also found that the most viral story on the night of the first Democrat presidential debate was from Breitbart News.
“The most-shared link across social media was to Breitbart News, a conservative outlet that often favors Mr. Trump. The headline was ‘Fact Check: Democrats Launch Primary Debate By Lying About Trump Economy.'” wrote the Wall Street Journal.
The Axios piece comes ahead of a White House social media summit on Thursday.
Are you a source at Facebook, Google, or any other corporation who wants to confidentially blow the whistle on wrongdoing or political bias at your company? Reach out to Allum Bokhari securely at allumbokhari@protonmail.com.
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News.
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