NYU Responds to Conservative Uproar Over Report Bias Report – Mediaite

Conservatives claims of censorship and other forms of bias on social media are unfounded, according to a study by New York University released Monday. After an uproar from conservative media over that report, one of the authors of the study stood by it in comments to Mediaite.

False Accusation: The Unfounded Claim that Social Media Companies Censor Conservatives, from NYUs Stern business school, made the case that such claims are not supported by evidence.

The claim of anti-conservative animus on the part of social media companies is itself a form of disinformation: a falsehood with no reliable evidence to support it, the study says. No trustworthy largescale studies have determined that conservative content is being removed for ideological reasons or that searches are being manipulated to favor liberal interests.

Conservatives have long accused tech and social media companies, often referred to as Big Tech in conservative media, of censoring, suppressing, or otherwise limiting the reach of their politicians and personalities. Republicans have also accused Twitter of shadow banning conservative politicians, alleging that the company manipulated its search algorithm to limit the ability to easily search for certain Republican officials.

The NYU study recognizes that initiatives to comb out false content disproportionately hurt conservatives, but points out that its because the right spreads more content that violates platform rules than the left.

In light of this discrepancy, the study continues, it stands to reason that right-leaning content would face labeling, demotion, or removal more frequently than left-leaning content.

In examining Facebook interactions to disprove anti-conservative bias, the study found that there were millions more interactions on Facebook with conservative media organizations than traditional, mainstream, or liberal media organizations.

From January 1 through November 3, 2020, Fox News had the most interactions 448 million and Breitbart was next, with 295 million. By comparison, CNN had the third-most interactions on Facebook, 191 million, ABC News had 138 million, NBC News had 106 million, and the New York Times had 87 million fewer than the conservative Daily Caller, which had 97 million Facebook interactions.

Regarding so-called shadow banning on Twitter, the study also found no support for these claims. [T]heres no evidence that Twitter intentionally shadow banned Republicans or anyone else, the study says. Rather, Twitter said it experienced a technical glitch which caused some 600,000 accounts including those of some Democratic politicians not to be auto-suggested when people searched for them. As the study points out, the glitch was fixed within 24 hours, but conservative politicians have continued to use it as an example of anti-conservative bias.

The study recommended that social media companies address conservatives claims by providing more disclosure for content moderation actions, offering users a choice of content moderation algorithms, hiring more employees and installing a content overseer to increase human moderation of influential accounts, and releasing more data for researchers.

The study also urged the administration of President Joe Biden to pursue a constructive reform agenda for social media, and to work with Congress to update Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act so that social media companies protection against liability depends on them taking more actions to monitor content. Study authors also encouraged the Biden administration to create a Digital Regulatory Agency, or expand federal oversight of social media, in order to rebuild the eroded trust in social media platforms that the study says has resulted from claims of anti-conservative bias.

Conservative media, including Breitbart, Fox News, and The Daily Caller, were quick to challenge the studys findings.

The Daily Caller covered the fact that the study was backed, at least in part, by Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, a longtime donor to Democratic candidates. Fox News linked the NYU study to Newmarks previous warnings about the proliferation of misinformation and disinformation on social media, and Breitbart focused on a monologue from Foxs Tucker Carlson that dismissed the study as manipulation by Big Tech. Carlsons monologue also mentioned Newmark, and managed to include criticisms of the usual array of modern-day conservative targets, including Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Gavin Newsom, and Hillary Clinton, before seeming to ultimately conclude that the study was actually the work of liberal philanthropist and one of conservatives favorite villains George Soros.

Conservative outlets also pointed to actions by Twitter and Facebook to limit the reach of an October 2020 New York Post story that included alleged emails from a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden. There were significant credibility concerns about the storys veracity, but the social media companies actions Facebook subject the piece to a fact-check review, while Twitter temporarily blocked any sharing of the link to the story sparked a massive conservative backlash.

Twitter eventually reversed its decision to block the story, but conservatives have continued to cite the incident as an example of social media companies anti-conservative bias. The NYU study addressed this, saying that, in retrospect, the social media companies actions seem like a case of reasonable decisions wrapped in mystifying processes, and concluded that [c]onsistency, clearer rules, and greater transparency would have gone a long way toward defusing criticism of these platform actions.

In response to criticism from conservative media, Paul Barrett, deputy director of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights and one of the authors of the study, told Mediaite that Newmarks backing was disclosed from the start, and that Newmark did not play a role in the report itself. He also acknowledged the limited access to data, an issue which the study itself addressed when it suggested that social media companies release more data to researchers.

Were proud to have Craig Newmark as one of our supporters, Barrett said. We disclosed right up front in the report that he is a backer. But he had no say over the contents of the report. We didnt discuss it with him or clear the results with him.

We acknowledged in the report that there are limitations on available data related to content moderation and other aspects of the platforms activities. So, we gathered the data that we could such as engagement information available from CrowdTangle and NewsWhip and combined that with information from previous research by other organizations, Barrett added. We also did a close analysis of particular instances of supposed censorship over time. We relied on this combination of sources to reach our conclusion that the claim of anti-conservative bias is unfounded. In fact, it is a form of disinformation meant to rile up the Trump base.

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NYU Responds to Conservative Uproar Over Report Bias Report - Mediaite