Okay, Let’s Talk About Social Media And Allegations Of Anti-Conservative Bias

Is social media censoring conservatives? The charge factors in the antitrust debate, so some context would be nice.

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I’m going to try to write about conservative allegations of social media bias with a bit of context today. Admittedly, this is probably a fool’s errand since the question seems settled in almost everyone’s minds. But since the charge is animating Republican lawmakers’ response to the Big Tech antitrust movement in Congress, it’s worth attempting to address it.

Both sides of the political spectrum seem to have locked in views here. To liberals, “Big Tech censors conservatives” is a dishonest Republican talking point meant to pressure Facebook, Google, and Twitter into leaving up rule-breaking content. To conservatives, the anecdotes tell the full story — the platforms banned Trump, along with many of his supporters, and even took down some conservative apps — so there’s little question in the matter, really. But the situation, to me, is a bit more complex.

The following isn’t meant to settle the argument (and I’m not even sure that’s possible). But I hope that it adds some perspective to a conversation that’s often conducted in absolutist terms.

How we got here

One way to view social media is as an alternative media. The’s a certain set of topics the institutional media will address, and social media — by nature of its scale — will fill in the gaps. Institutional media, for example, doesn’t spend a lot of time covering gaming. But there are many passionate gaming fans, so gaming content is big on social media.

Similar dynamics, albeit to a lesser extent, apply to conservative content on social media. There are a few big, right-leaning news organizations (See: Fox News), but much of the institutional media tends to sympathize with the left…