Big Tech Employees and PACs Gave 12 Times More Money to Democrats Than to GOP: Report

The Twitter and Facebook logo along with binary cyber codes are seen in this illustration taken on Nov. 26, 2019. Dado Ruvic//Reuters

According to an original analysis by the Internet Accountability Project (IAP) released on Thursday, Facebook and Twitter employees and PACs donated more money to Democrats, at a ratio of 12 to 1, compared to the amount donated to Republicans in 2020.

The PACs and employee donations to the Democrats from the companies in question were more than $5.5 million. Less than $435,000 went to Republicans.

“As Twitter and Facebook became more brazen in their politically biased censorship, Americans turned to Parler. By November 2020, Parler had the most downloaded app on Apple’s U.S. App Store and on Google’s U.S. Play Store, becoming more popular than TikTok, Zoom, and YouTube,” said Mike Davis, the founder and president of IAP in a statement.

IAP, a nonprofit, states that its mission is to “lend a conservative voice to the calls for federal and state governments to rein in Big Tech before it is too late.”

“On January 8, 2021, the day after Facebook and Twitter banned President Trump from their platforms, Parler had 20 million users and was again the top-downloaded app and the obvious choice for President Trump and his 90 million followers. Parler’s rising popularity made Parler a viable threat to Facebook and Twitter’s dominance over social media. So together, they colluded with Amazon to destroy Parler and used the horrific attacks on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 as a shameful excuse. Why are Congressional Democrats on the House Oversight Committee investigating Parler? Just follow the money,” Davis wrote.

In one example, the IAP says that in 2020, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez received $36,346 while all Republicans on the House Oversight Committee combined only got less than $1,950, and that Twitter employees didn’t donate “a single dollar” to Republicans on the Oversight Committee.

According to data from OpenSecrets, a nonprofit that tracks money in politics and campaign finance records, big tech companies have been major financial backers of the Biden campaign the election cycle.

The top five contributors to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s candidate committee include Alphabet, which was the largest contributor; Microsoft Corp, the fourth-largest contributor; and Amazon, the fifth-largest contributor.

Alphabet contributed just under $1.9 million to the committee, Microsoft contributed $997,226, and Amazon gave $931,821.

Other major technology companies that made it to the top donors list for the 2020 cycle included Apple and Facebook. Microsoft in particular has played an extensive role in supporting Biden’s campaign, compared to other companies.

Microsoft’s senior executives have donated more to the Biden campaign during the primaries than any other large tech company, according to data from the Revolving Door Project, part of the Center for Economic & Policy Research (CERP).

Bowen Xiao contributed to this report.