In labeling posts from former President Donald Trump as misinformation, Facebook may have increased the reach and engagement by drawing more attention to it, a study released Wednesday showed.
Hundreds of Trump Facebook posts labeled as misinformation last year earned over 250,000 more online interactions per post, or roughly 2.6 times more interactions, than his average post with no label, according to a new study by Media Matters for America, a left-leaning online disinformation watchdog.
Trump Facebook posts that shared election “misinformation” earned the most engagement, according to the study.
“Facebook keeps touting its labels as a proactive response — ignoring both internal and external data that shows they are ineffective and too inconsistently applied to help,” Media Matters said in the study.
TECH GIANTS PUSH TO INCREASE SKILLED IMMIGRATION UNDER BIDEN
“Facebook’s seemingly haphazard labeling system missed some of Trump’s posts promoting election misinformation and amplified irrelevant posts with generic labels,” the study added.
Using the Crowdtangle social media tracking software, Media Matters analyzed a list of 6,081 posts created by Trump from Jan. 1, 2020, to Jan. 6, 2021, when Facebook suspended his account.
The study cites right-wing media personalities who said misinformation labels actually bring attention to Facebook posts. For example, the Daily Wire’s Candace Owens said, “It makes me want to click through and see what it says.”
In the past year, Facebook executives said the labels were effective after the 2020 presidential election, claiming they labeled 180 million posts as “false” between March and November. However, they have not addressed how effective the misinformation labels are at deterring users from engaging or sharing such posts.
Facebook’s data scientists reportedly found that labels on Trump’s posts decreased reshares by only about 8%, noting that “given that Trump has SO many shares on any given post, the decrease is not going to change shares by orders of magnitude.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Media Matters claims that misinformation, particularly from Trump, has still performed well and spread on Facebook, despite the labels.
