Fast Company: “Many Republicans routinely complain that the big social networks systematically suppress right-wing viewpoints, but they’ve produced little real evidence of it. A new study from New York University finds that there is no evidence of it, and in fact finds the opposite—that social media has spread right-wing viewpoints to wider audiences than ever before. “[T]he claim of anti-conservative animus is itself a form of disinformation: a falsehood with no reliable evidence to support it,” the report states. “No trustworthy large-scale studies have determined that conservative content is being removed for ideological reasons or that searches are being manipulated to favor liberal interests.” And yet this little big lie has been alarmingly effective. A Pew Research Center poll from August 2020 found that 90% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents believe it’s at least somewhat likely that social media companies intentionally censor political viewpoints they find objectionable…The NYU study, conducted by disinformation and content moderation researcher Paul Barrett, relies on tools such as CrowdTangle and NewsWhip to track the spread and reach of right-wing content. Barrett, who is deputy director of NYU’s Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, also assembled a chronology of all the claims and anecdotes posited by right-wingers such as Senators Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and Marsha Blackburn as proof that social media suppresses “conservative viewpoints.”…