It’s no secret that the tech companies of Silicon Valley lurch left in their politics. Facebook is no exception, and for the last few years, the social media juggernaut has been working to discourage traffic to conservative web sites. However, they may now be experiencing the first signs of consumer backlash against such practices.
Texian Partisan and Texas Nationalist Movement has certainly had their problems with Facebook, like when they tried to disconnect us from over 200,000 supporters. So, the fact that other non-progressive groups are experiencing similar problems is no surprise to us. They do this mainly through employing algorithms that undercut the organic reach of so-called “’partisan’” news from trending and restricts ads from what they deem to be fake news, and you can probably guess what they consider to be partisan or fake.
While founder Mark Zuckerberg has tried to down-play this, even he has admitted to a certain regional left-wing bias. Additionally, Gizmodo broke the story on how former Facebook employees “’routinely suppressed conservative news stories from the network’s trending news section,’” and artificially promoted certain other stories. Well, it seems that he and his company may be starting to pay a price for this sort of treatment.
MarketWatch is reporting that Facebook has lost over 20% on its stocks and is expecting more bad news to follow in the near future. Clearly, something has discouraged new users from joining the platform, and Gateway Pundit is making the case that falling Facebook stocks have everything to do with Facebook working to eliminate “93% of traffic to Top Conservative sites.”
In 2017 Harvard and Columbia Journalism Review found that The Gateway Pundit was the 4th most influential conservative news source in the 2016 election. Because of this we were targeted and have seen our numbers related to Facebook and Twitter decline dramatically.
Gateway Pundit is quick to point out that it’s not just them. Some popular conservative sites, and even President Trump’s own page, have sunk “a whopping 45%.” This while more progressive pages, like that of Bernie Sanders, haven’t experienced any similar plummeting of activity, making it unlikely that the decline is the natural ebb and flow of politics. Furthermore, GP points out that such acts are a violation of FB’s contract with these sites.
This is a criminal act. Facebook took our money for advertising and promised a fair playing field. Facebook lied to us and every conservative group in America.
Since Facebook seems intent on continuing to cross that line between remaining a neutral platform for speech and becoming a de-facto mouthpiece for a particular political persuasion, it is feasible that they will continue to experience similar losses, driving users to their competitors. However, Facebook has a virtual monopoly on social media, so Zuckerberg may believe the current stock-drop is endurable, acceptable losses in the name of a cause he believes in. However, it remains to be seen if the stockholders will see things the same way. If current trends continue, who knows how long it will be before they demand change if the face of hemorrhaging stock shares?
