Hey, Facebook — What Happened?
I debated — What the Headline of this Posting should be. We journalists are not supposed to tease people with a question headline. We’re supposed to lead with the most important fact, but which of these statements is the most important fact?
Is it —
The position of conservative news media strengthens on Facebook.
Or is it —
The position of progressive news media weakens on Facebook.
I ask that based on this — the latest report on Facebook engagements provided by NewsWhip for the month of December shows some significant changes in levels of engagement.
I also raise the question because Facebook has been accused by some politicians, as well as some of its employees. of favoring liberals. So that accusation raises another question in relation to these numbers — Did Facebook change its algorithms because of that criticism.
I have made the point before in previous analyses that the numbers don’t appear to justify that criticism. Past reports on news publishers has shown that there are more high-ranking progressive — or, if you prefer the word, ‘liberal’ — news publishers than conservative — or, if you prefer the phrase, ‘alt-right’ — news publishers.
But that’s because there are more such sources, period. In terms of actual “engagements”, the two sides have been pretty similar. Until now.
Every single mainstream, NOT conservative, media site is down: New York Times, Washington Post, NBCNews, NPR, Huffington Post, both of the BBC products — and USA Today is down significantly while CNN is down dramatically.
Meanwhile every conservative media publisher on Facebook is either flat or up: Fox News, which takes over the #1 spot, the debatable Daily Mail, the Daily Wire, Breitbart, and Western Journal.
And when I use the words significantly and dramatically in describing the drop month to month, it is not hyperbole. USA Today is down more than a third (36%) month to month. CNN’s engagements were cut nearly in half (47%).
So, maybe it was a one-month fluke, right? That’s what you’re thinking. Me, too. Uh…. No. It’s not quite as dramatic, or across the board, when you compare the figures over the three months, but it’s pretty close. USAToday down 39% since October. CNN also down 39%. Add to those — The New York Times down 34%. The Washington Post down 22%.
Meanwhile, Fox News. Pretty well flat for all three months: October at 32.6 Million, November at 32.5 Million, December at 31.9 Million. And Breitbart? Same story. October at 19 Million, November at 18.4 Million, December at 19.2 Million. Take a look for yourself.
You want more? Of course you do because you all have inquiring minds. So, if the one month numbers were not a fluke, and the three month numbers seem to verify the point… how about going on step further. Let’s compare the numbers year to year.
In December of 2017, Fox News was the #1 publisher on Facebook. The New York Times took the #2 spot, followed by NBC, the Daily Mail, The Hill and again in the number six spot — CNN. But if you actually clicked on the link (I’m sure you all did), you will notice one other significant difference year to year. In 2018 the numbers are up pretty dramatically across the board — conservative or mainstream.
But back to the question — does Facebook ‘favor’ liberal or conservative publishers. To answer, or try to answer, the question, let’s look at the numbers in another way. Let’s look at what you might call the “batting average” for the various publishers. We get that by dividing the actual number of engagements — that is defined by NewsWhip as the total of likes shares and comments — by the number of posts.
What we get is the average number of LSC’s (Likes, Shares, Comments) per post. I have provided a break-out of those numbers below. So, what do you see? Focus on the ratio column. That’s the ‘batting average.’ I’ll share what I see in the numbers after you’ve had a chance to study the table.
The Daily Wire is clearly the runaway winner when it comes to publishing on Facebook. It had a whopping 9,367 ‘engagements’ per post in 2017. In 2018, that number nearly tripled, to 26,811. And in both cases with the fewest posts of any of the publishers. Obviously it has a passionate group of supporters. Or, to keep my baseball analogy going, the Daily Wire had a lot of runs and hits with few errors — at least, according to its supporters.
After the Daily Wire, there is a significant drop in 2017 to the #2 top hitter — the New York Times, followed by CNN, BBC and Huffington Post rounding out the top five.
After the Daily Wire, there is also a significant drop in 2018 to the #2 hitter. In this case it’s the Huffington Post, folowed by NBC, CNN and then in the number five position — Fox News.
(Let me put in a disclaimer here. You will notice that there are no numbers for BBC.com in 2017. That’s because it didn’t exist then. You will also notice that there is an asterisk around the NBC numbers. That’s because in 2017 it was listed as NBC.com which could include all the entertainment programming as well, while in 2018 it was listed as NBC News.)
The other notable change year to year is in Fox News publishing. I am assuming the numbers provided by NewsWhip are right and the Fox team dropped its postings in 2018 to one tenth the number it was posting in 2017. Based on that assumption, the Fox team seems to have identified the hot button items for its users in 2018 while, as noted above, CNN seems to have dropped the ball in this last quarter of 2018.
So, based on all this, what conclusions can we come to. Conclusions may not be the right word because we don’t know that these are actual determinants. However, we can look at some possible suppositions, based on the three sets of comparisons — month to month, final quarter and year to year. They are:
- Facebooks’ algorithms have changed to favor conservative users.
- Conservatives are more ardent supporters of their favorite publishers.
- Facebook’s algorithms merely reflect the ups and downs of the news cycle.
- Progressives’ support is diffused over multiple publishing sites.
- Some manager have become better and some worse at managing and manipulating the Facebook playing field.
Obviously these five don’t constitute all the options, but they’re a start. Since there is usually never one simple cause and effect relationship, the most likely answer is that it is a combination of these factors. For what it’s worth, I believe that based on these numbers, that it is a combination of these ideas, and probably more, BUT that the evidence appears to indicate that the primary fact is that Facebook has changed its algorithms in response to the criticisms of “liberal bias.”
