Facebook Has ‘Interfered’ With US Elections 39 Times Since 2008, Per Study

The Media Research Center published a study last month in which it found that Google "interfered" in major elections in the United States "41 times over the last 16 years."

This week, the same researchers learned that Facebook has "interfered" with U.S. elections "at least 39 times since 2008."

"Like Google, Facebook has an extensive history of interfering in U.S. elections. But it’s not completely fair to compare the two companies. I believe some part of Mark Zuckerberg believes in free speech. Google management clearly does not," Media Research Center founder and President Brent Bozell told Fox News Digital.

"But regardless of what Mr. Zuckerberg believes, his company’s policies and practices have resulted in a great deal of censorship that always seems to target the same side of the political spectrum, and it needs to stop."

Facebook's efforts, also like Google's, disproportionately favored liberal candidates.

Here are some of the highlights from the study, per MRC:

• In 2012, Facebook suspended a Veteran PAC for a meme drawing attention to the attack on Benghazi. 
• In 2016, Facebook censored then-Democratic Party candidate for president Bernie Sanders and "conservative topics" and news.
• In 2018, Facebook censored multiple candidates for Congress and state legislatures. Facebook removed ads for Sen. (then-Rep.) Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-MT) and Michigan state Senate Republican candidate Aric Nesbitt
• In 2020, censorship on Facebook exploded. "The platform censored posts and ads from then-sitting President Donald Trump at least four times and took down seven political ads paid for by the political right. One of these ad campaigns Facebook killed just over a month before the election. The ad reportedly pointed out the incongruence between Democrats’ open borders and COVID-19 lockdown policies."
• In 2022, Facebook censored multiple gubernatorial candidates and candidates for U.S. Congress. The platform censored Rep. (then candidate) Rich McCormick (R-GA), Virginia GOP congressional candidate Jarome Bell, Tennessee GOP congressional candidate Robby Starbuck, and Missouri GOP U.S. Senate candidate Eric Greitens.
• In 2024, Facebook and Instagram are limiting users’ access to political content.

We encourage you to check out the full report from Gabriela Pariseau and Dan Schneider here. 

Of course, Facebook also suppressed the distribution of the Hunter Biden laptop story ahead of the 2020 election. Mark Zuckerberg described the decision to censor the report as "decreased distribution," the practice in which a tech company purposely de-ranks an article so that only accounts continuing to scroll can find the link.

The consequences of Facebook policing information regarding the election are profound. At least one in six Biden voters say they would have changed their vote had they been aware of the laptop report's validity.

What's more, there are reasons to believe that Facebook has acted at the behest of the Democrat Party during its censorship rulings. 

We wrote an analysis earlier this year highlighting the oft-memory-holed 103-page staff interim report that the House Judiciary Committee filed in November, detailing how government agencies pressured tech companies to dictate the information posted on social media before the 2020 presidential election.

The finding discovered "hundreds" of reports showing how the Department of Homeland Security, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Department of State, and Stanford University assisted in the creation of a secret "disinformation" group that asked social media companies to "censor true information, jokes, and political opinions."

Facebook and Twitter (pre-Elon Musk) acquiesced.

Consider that the frequently-cited "private company" defense proves moot if the private company acts on behalf of the government.  It's called government-sponsored action. 

In that case, tech companies serve as "state actors" to help agencies subvert the First Amendment, which prohibits the government from policing speech. State actors can be sued for restricting First Amendment rights.

"The fact that you now have the media and the Democrats pushing to police Facebook ... we need to be pushing back on that level because that actually is, in some cases, government-sponsored action," Ben Shapiro told OutKick in 2020. 

"We have the White House telling Facebook to take things down. Now you’re looking at Facebook as an agent of the government. That’s a First Amendment case."

What's stopping Big Tech from similarly influencing the 2024 election, you might ask? 

Nothing. 

Republicans are aware of the measures taken to meddle in the election on Joe Biden's behalf. However, they have not done anything to prevent further actions from happening again.

And information policing will happen again in 2024. 

Why would it not? Facebook and Google do not trust you to freely judge the two political parties equally. They will not allow you to do so. They haven't in over 16 years. 

Donald Trump is the favorite to win in November, according to most polls. But the censorship industrial complex looms over the integrity of the election.