- News influencers – People who regularly post about current events and civic issues on social media and have at least 100,000 followers on any of Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter) or YouTube.
- Political orientation – A measure of a news influencer’s partisan or ideological views. A right-leaning news influencer is one who publicly expresses that they identify as a Republican or conservative or support Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election. A left-leaning news influencer is one who publicly expresses that they identify as a Democrat, liberal or progressive or support Vice President Kamala Harris (or supported President Joe Biden before he dropped out of the race) in the 2024 election. This information was found in the bio, profile picture, banner image, pinned posts or recent posts on an influencer’s social media account, any personal website or professional page, and prominent media coverage.
- Values and identities – Language or imagery in the bio, profile picture, banner image or pinned posts on an influencer’s social media account that expresses specific beliefs or identities.
- News organization affiliation – An influencer with this affiliation is one who either currently works for or previously worked for a news organization, as well as freelancers who have regularly contributed to news organizations. A news organization can be any news outlet that has a staff and multiple bylines. Researchers considered affiliated influencers to have this background regardless of their news organization’s political orientation, audience size or primary publishing method (digital, TV, print, etc.).
- Major social media sites – The five primary sites we studied, chosen based on audience size and the presence of discussion about news: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter) and YouTube.
Just over half of news influencers on Facebook explicitly express a clear political orientation. And three times as many say they are right-leaning (39% of all Facebook news influencers) as say they are left-leaning (13%).
Influencers were categorized by whether they identify with a political party or ideology or expressed support for the Democratic or Republican presidential candidate in their social media profile, posts, personal website or media coverage.
About this chapter
This chapter looks at news influencers on Facebook. Virtually all of them also have accounts on other sites. For analysis of news influencers in general across social media sites, read the report overview.
In this report, news influencers are people with large followings on social media sites who regularly post about current events or civic issues. Refer to the methodology for details.
Smaller shares of Facebook news influencers identify specific values or identities on their pages. This includes 6% who say they are pro-LGBTQ+ (or express an LGBTQ+ identity), 6% who say they are pro-Palestinian and 4% who identify as pro-Israeli. These positions can be indicated in a variety of ways, whether through words, images or emojis (including flags).
Some Facebook news influencers also prominently declare their opposition to (3%) or support for (1%) abortion rights.
Similar to news influencers in general, those on Facebook are mostly men. Two-thirds of Facebook news influencers are men, while three-in-ten are women. (Refer to the methodology for details on how we coded news influencers by gender.)
This is a reversal of the gender dynamic of news consumers on Facebook: 60% of U.S. adults who regularly get news on Facebook are women, while 39% are men.
About a quarter of news influencers on Facebook (24%) have a current or former affiliation with a media organization. This is roughly the same as the share of news influencers on X who have links to the news industry, and higher than some other sites.
Still, about three-quarters of news influencers on Facebook (76%) do not have a background or affiliation with a news organization.
For more details on the differences between influencers with and without links to the news industry, read Chapter 4.
What are Facebook news influencers posting about?
To get a sense of what news influencers are posting about, researchers collected and analyzed all public posts by the 500 news influencers in our sample for three separate weeks: July 15-21, July 29-Aug. 4 and Aug. 19-25.
There were many major events related to the election in or around these weeks, including the first assassination attempt on Donald Trump on July 13, the Republican National Convention July 15-18, President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the race July 21 and the Democratic National Convention Aug. 19-22.
Most posts by Facebook news influencers that addressed current events (58%) focused on the U.S. government, politics or the presidential election.
Facebook stands out for a relatively high share of posts by news influencers focused on technology (9%). Most of these were about cryptocurrencies (8%).
What other sites are Facebook news influencers on?
For most news influencers on Facebook, the site is just one piece of a larger social media presence. Only 2% of news influencers on Facebook are only on Facebook, while two-thirds are on at least four other social media sites (five or more in total).
X, YouTube and Instagram are the most common other sites that Facebook news influencers have a presence on. Around three-quarters or more have an account on each of these three sites, while 42% are also on TikTok.
Similar to other sites, many Facebook news influencers (44%) host a podcast, while a somewhat smaller share (26%) maintain an email newsletter that they send out to subscribers.
Most news influencers on Facebook are trying to bring in money from their online presence, whether through paid subscriptions to additional content, donations or merchandise sales. About three-quarters of news influencers on the site (77%) use at least one of these monetization strategies. In part this might be due to the structure of the site: Facebook offers subscription tools for page owners.
Roughly one-in-ten Facebook news influencers (11%) have a public Discord server, where they can further connect with fans and followers.
