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Democrats are angrier than Republicans on Facebook

New studies about engagement with congressional Facebook posts and hyper-partisan Facebook pages show that information shared by partisan sources is increasingly leading to angry reactions.

Reproduced from a Pew Research Center report; Chart: Axios Visuals

A new study from Pew Research Center finds:

  • The proportion of reactions from Facebook audiences to Democratic officials' posts that used the "angry" button more than tripled after the election.
  • Republicans' "angry reactions" stayed pretty much the same before and after the election, hovering around 10%.

The analysis mimics findings from NewsWhip, a social analytics company, that show a high proportion of "angry face" reactions to likes for these hyper-partisan political pages on Facebook. These publishers "are highly adept" at getting their followers to react with strong emotion rather than just a like, per NewsWhip.