During the confirmation hearing and in the days that followed, right-leaning pages posted nearly 3,500 times about the hearing, accounting for a plurality — roughly 37% — of the posts about the hearing from news and politics pages. These 3,500 posts earned over 5.3 million interactions.

Left-leaning pages posted nearly 2,600 times during the same time frame — accounting for 27% of posts — while ideologically nonaligned pages posted almost 3,400 times,  accounting for 36%. 

Notably, ideologically nonaligned pages posted more than other pages during the first two days of the hearing, but right-leaning pages gained momentum as Republican senators pushed baseless smears that the pages then amplified.

Right-leaning pages accounted for 27 of the top 100 posts (in terms of number of interactions) about Jackson’s hearing from news and politics pages. These posts pushed outrage-baiting commentary, with more than half of them specifically promoting the claim that Jackson wouldn’t “define what a woman is” or the baseless smear that Jackson has history of allowing sex offenders “off the hook” and is “soft on crime.” 

Perhaps more notable than the overall number of posts with high interactions from right-leaning pages is how these pages worked to flood the zone once they had coalesced around specific narratives -- posting more often than their counterparts and outpacing any pushback or counternarratives.

Along with focusing on those specific smears, top posts amplified exchanges between Jackson and Republican senators, such as Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), who both questioned her on “critical race theory” — the latest absurd right-wing obsession.

During the hearing, these talking points and smears were also shared within Facebook groups.

According to data from the Dewey Square Adwatch tool set, right-wing politicians, organizations, and media groups have run at least 72 ads related to Jackson between March 21, when the confirmation hearing started, and March 27. 

Almost 82% — 59 of these 72 ads — referenced the baseless smear that she is  “soft on crime,” particularly sex offenses, or claimed she is unqualified because she couldn’t “define what a woman is.” Most of these ads, which cost up to $12,500 and earned at least 745,000 impressions, are being funded by right-wing organizations American Principles Project, Gun Owners of America, or Heritage Action for America.

Using CrowdTangle, Media Matters compiled a list of 1,773 Facebook pages that frequently posted about U.S. politics from January 1 to August 25, 2020.

For an explanation of how we compiled pages and identified them as right-leaning, left-leaning, or ideologically nonaligned, see the methodology here.

The resulting list consisted of 771 right-leaning pages, 497 ideologically nonaligned pages, and 505 left-leaning pages.

Every day, Media Matters also uses Facebook's CrowdTangle tool and this methodology to identify and share the 10 posts with the most interactions from top political and news-related Facebook pages.

Using CrowdTangle, Media Matters compiled all posts for the pages on this list that were posted from March 21 through March 27, 2022, and were related to Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Senate confirmation hearing. We reviewed data for these posts, including total interactions (reactions, comments, and shares). 

We defined posts as related to Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Senate confirmation hearing if they had any of the following terms in the message or in the included link, article headline, or article description: “Breyer,” “Breyer's,” “Supreme Court,” “SCOTUS,” “Ketanji Brown Jackson,” “Judge Brown,” “Black woman on the Supreme Court,” “Black female Supreme Court,” “Black woman to the Supreme Court,” “Black woman judge,” “female Supreme Court,” “female SCOTUS,” “SCOTUS nomination,” “SCOTUS pick,” “SCOTUS vacancy,” “SCOTUS list,” “SCOTUS nominee,” “Biden SCOTUS,” “Supreme Court pick,” “race-based Supreme Court,” “Judge Jackson,” “KBJ,” “the first Black woman,” “first African American woman,” “African American woman on the Supreme Court,” “African American female Supreme Court,” “African American woman to the Supreme Court,” “African American woman judge,” “first African-American woman,” “African-American woman on the Supreme Court,” “African-American female Supreme Court,” “African-American woman to the Supreme Court,” “African-American woman judge,” “Senate confirmation hearing,” “confirmation process,” “confirmation hearing,” “associate justice,” “Senate judicary committee,” “Biden’s nominee,” “Biden nominee,” or “Kentanji.”

We excluded any posts that had any of the following terms for their relation to Justice Clarence Thomas’ hospitalization or current Supreme Court oral arguments: “hospitalized,” “flu-like,” “infection,” “hospital,” “symptoms,” “Sundance,” “Berger,” or “oral arguments.”