Don’t count David Marcus of the Federalist among those who believe social media bias stands in the way of conservative success. Marcus’ latest column suggests history paints a different picture.
It is absolutely clear that social media companies, particularly Facebook and Twitter, show enormous bias against conservative posts. This has been laid out in several articles, including in these pages. It’s not awesome and the companies should look to fix it.
But the over the top reaction from some on the right has at times been unhinged. One Fox News host went so far as to suggest that these companies be run by the government as public utilities, a position more easily at home in the socialist playbook than the American conservative one. …
… The basic concern among conservatives is that if social media companies give them less bandwidth, their message will unfairly die on the vine. While for any individual conservative being punished by social media can be quite harmful and unfair, for the movement as a whole, it’s a blip. Just as in Borges’ story, another feed, site, account or profile will slip into place, like soldiers on a Civil War battlefield.
Our current paradigm is that progressives hold disproportionate power in culture and conservatives hold disproportionate power in politics. That’s basically true, and it proves that while culture may be upstream, it is by no means dispositive. Conservative ideas writ large are not being kept from Americans, and ultimately if 500 people are screaming for one thing and only 100 are screaming for the other, most people will still decide based on the content of the argument, not its volume.
