Government ethics dominates Facebook chatter before debate

Government ethics was the most-discussed political topic on Facebook within the last month, the company said on Tuesday.

The economy, topics related to government assistance, religion and guns followed on the list of the most-talked-about political topics on the social media platform between Oct. 9 and Nov. 8.

{mosads}When similar data was released a month ago, government ethics did not even break into the top five topics discussed on the network. But it may have received a boost from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s congressional testimony touching on the personal email account she used while serving at the State Department.

Clinton, the Democratic presidential front-runner, testified on October 22 before a House panel investigating the September 2012 terrorist attacks on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. Her testimony — and much of the coverage surrounding the hearing — also touched on her use of a personal email account when she was at the State Department. Republicans on the campaign trail have also attacked Clinton over the email server.

The previous top issue on the platform was religion, when there was a public outcry over GOP candidate Ben Carson’s argument that a Muslim should not serve in the White House.

Facebook also found, once again, that Donald Trump dominates conversations on the platform about Republican candidates. More than 13 million users generated over 56 million interactions — shares, likes, comments and posts — in roughly the last month. Carson, who leads the GOP field along with Trump, garnered more than 29 million interactions on the platform.

The new Facebook data does not reveal the sentiment of the posts, meaning they could be positive, negative or neutral.

Republican presidential candidates are gathering in Milwaukee, Wis., for the fourth debate Tuesday night. It will be the first since the combative debate held by CNBC in late October that has stoked tensions between the campaigns and the media.