Social media in the 2020 United States presidential election
 2020 U.S. presidential election | |
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Social media was used extensively in the 2020 United States presidential election. Incumbent president Donald Trump had previously utilized his Twitter account in the past to reach his voters and make announcements, both during and after the 2016 election. The Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden also made use of social media networks to express his views and opinions on important events such as the Trump administration's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the protests following the murder of George Floyd, and the controversial appointment of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.[1]
Similar to the previous presidential election, social media helped shape the course of events, with candidates often hunting for 'viral moments'. These could include certain posts, remarks or videos.[2]
In contrast to the previous election, the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal that was exposed after Donald Trump's electoral victory in 2016 led to tighter regulation on the harvesting of personal data for political advertising. Additionally, many platforms enforced stricter rules on the content that was being posted, and also incorporated fact checking software into their applications. The software repeatedly flagged Republican candidate Donald Trump's posts, which led him to accuse social media companies of bias against his campaign.[3]
Background
In the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump made extensive use of his Twitter account to broadcast his thoughts and opinions during his campaign.[4][5] The Trump campaign also utilized targeted advertising on the social media site Facebook, by hiring political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica to create these personalized ads for users.[6] A subsequent whistle-blowing by an anonymous source, (later revealed to be former Cambridge Analytica employee Christopher Wylie) revealed that personal data of the users had been illegally used, which led to a major data scandal and the liquidation of the company, as well as the eventually testification of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in front of the United States Congress.[7][8]
Joe Biden, the Democratic Party nominee for 2020, had not made much use of social media in the past, but used portions of his campaign budget to run advertising on certain platforms, most notably Facebook, where he is estimated to have spent up to $1.6 million on advertising leading up to the California Democratic primary.[9]
Democratic primaries
With over 23 candidates in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries, attracting and generating social media attention became a central campaign strategy and a significant focus of campaign fundraising, due to the ongoing rise of social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.[10][11][12]
With the new centrality of social media to presidential campaigns, staff attention also had to be focused on managing negative viral moments.[13]
In the summer of 2019, the selection process of qualifying for the September 2019 2020 Democratic Party presidential debates and forums, which required candidates to have passed a 2% threshold in 4 national opinion polls, put enormous pressure on the less well-known candidates to generate a "viral moment".[14]
Reddit became an important social media platform in the primaries, with most major candidates having their own 'subreddits', or dedicated community noticeboards. The largest of these was 'r/SandersForPresident', which accumulated nearly 500,000 followers before Sanders dropped out of the primaries.[15]
During the primaries, candidate Andrew Yang made extensive use of social media, which greatly increased his following. His self-proclaimed voter base the 'Yang Gang' became the subject of many internet memes, particularly on the online message board 4chan.[16]
Joe Biden campaign
Similar to his Republican party opponent, Donald Trump, Joe Biden made extensive use of Twitter to broadcast news of his campaign, as well as his opinions on various policies and his proposed changes. Biden used the platform to publicly announce California senator Kamala Harris as his running mate, and also to talk to her publicly.[17][18] Biden also made use of the app TikTok to reach out to teen audiences and promote his campaign by establishing a paid partnership with a group of creators under the name of TikTok for Biden.[19]
Donald Trump campaign
The Trump campaign made considerable use of social media in the 2016 presidential election, and continued to do so in 2020. Trump used the online platform Twitter to broadcast opinions and news on his campaign to his supporters, and his campaign staff created personalized advertisements for Facebook users. The personal data used to create these ads was obtained illegally, something which led to the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal. Trump's re-election campaign has been making use of use of multiple social media platforms as well as targeted ads since mid-2019 in an attempt to gain voters early.[20] On 29 June 2020, Reddit deleted Trump's fans' subreddit, r/The_Donald, for violating its policies repeatedly over its lifetime.[21]
In December 2019, the Wall Street Journal reported that candidate Senator Bernie Sanders and President Trump were the most active on Facebook, followed by Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren.[22]
Donald Trump has been criticized for his false and misleading statements, which have repeatedly been flagged by Twitter for violating its policies.[23][24]
A Pew survey of 3518 twitter users in 2020 shows that the most active 10% generate 92% of the tweets. This highly active group is 69% Democratic and 26% Republican. Furthermore, the high-activity Democrats post twice as many posts per month as high-activity Republicans.[25]
See also
- Foreign interference in the 2020 United States elections
- Social media in the 2016 United States presidential election
References
- ^ Biden, Joe (19 September 2020). "Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg fought for all of us. She was a giant of the Court and unflinching in her pursuit of equal justice under the law. Because of her life's work, we are closer to that more perfect union we've always strived to be". Twitter.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Wang, Amy B (24 June 2019). "Candidates hunt desperately for viral moments". Washington Post. Retrieved 5 August 2019.
- ^ Romm, Tony (11 July 2019), "Trump accuses social media companies of 'terrible bias' at White House summit decried by critics", Washington Post, retrieved 10 July 2020
- ^ "Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) on Twitter". Twitter. Archived from the original on 8 January 2021. Retrieved 30 June 2020.
- ^ Barbaro, Michael (5 October 2016). "Pithy, Mean and Powerful: How Donald Trump Mastered Twitter for 2016". The New York Times.
- ^ Wong, Julia Carrie (29 January 2020). "One year inside Trump's monumental Facebook campaign". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 30 June 2020.
- ^ Rosenberg, Matthew; Confessore, Nicholas; Cadwalladr, Carole (17 March 2018). "How Trump Consultants Exploited the Facebook Data of Millions". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 30 June 2020.
- ^ Watson, Chloe (11 April 2018). "The key moments from Mark Zuckerberg's testimony to Congress". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 30 June 2020.
- ^ Goldmacher, Shane (8 June 2020). "Biden Pours Millions Into Facebook Ads, Blowing Past Trump's Record". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 11 July 2020.
- ^ Dezenski, Lauren (1 August 2019). "How to make money with merch from a viral debate moment". CNN. Retrieved 5 August 2019.
- ^ Lapowsky, Ian (17 April 2019). "In the 2020 Race, What Is the Value of Social Media Stardom?". Wired. Retrieved 5 August 2019.
- ^ Schneider, Elana (17 February 2019). "2020 hopefuls hunt for viral moments". Politico. Retrieved 5 August 2019.
- ^ Rutenberg, Jim (19 May 2019). "Kissing Babies, Loving Scrapple, Fighting Viral Hoaxes: '20 Race's New Routine". New York Times. Retrieved 5 August 2019.
- ^ Astor, Maggie (1 August 2019). "Only 8 Candidates Have Qualified for the Next Democratic Debate". New York Times. Retrieved 5 August 2019.
- ^ Ember, Sydney (8 April 2020). "Bernie Sanders Drops Out of 2020 Democratic Race for President". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2 July 2020.
- ^ Brandom, Russell (9 March 2019). "Presidential candidate Andrew Yang has a meme problem". The Verge. Retrieved 7 July 2020.
- ^ "Joe Biden announces Kamala Harris as his running mate". Twitter. Retrieved 13 August 2020.
- ^ "Kamala Harris responding to Joe Biden's tweet". Twitter. Retrieved 13 August 2020.
- ^ Roose, Kevin (6 December 2020). "How Joe Biden's Digital Team Tamed the MAGA Internet". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 8 October 2022.
- ^ Wong, Julia Carrie (29 January 2020). "One year inside Trump's monumental Facebook campaign". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2 July 2020.
- ^ Bedingfield, Will (2 July 2020). "Reddit has banned r/The_Donald. Who it bans next matters more". Wired UK. ISSN 1357-0978. Retrieved 2 July 2020.
- ^ Glazer, Emily (December 2019). "Presidential Candidates Take to Social Media". The Wall Street Journal.
- ^ Yglesias, Matthew (29 May 2020). "Twitter flags Trump for "glorifying violence" in "looting starts, shooting starts" tweet". Vox. Retrieved 30 June 2020.
- ^ Feiner, Lauren (23 June 2020). "Twitter flagged another Trump tweet for violating its policies". CNBC. Retrieved 30 June 2020.
- ^ "Differences in How Democrats and Republicans Behave on Twitter: A small minority of users create the vast majority of tweets from U.S. adults, and 69% of these highly prolific tweeters are Democrats" Pew Research Center (Oct 15, 2020) online