Analysis: Democrats more negative than Republicans at House hearing on Facebook's Libra

The Democratic Party was more negative on Facebook's cryptocurrency project Libra compared to Republicans at yesterday's Congressional hearing with Facebook's blockchain lead David Marcus, according to analysis from The Block.

Looking across partisan lines, The Block analyzed the sentiments of every single representative on the House Financial Services Committee, and found Republicans were notably more vocal in "protecting innovation" and "de-platforming/censoring payment" concerns. Democrats, on the other hand, were more likely to favor direct attacks on Facebook and if Calibra should be considered a Significantly Important Financial Institution (SIFI).

Source: The Block, House Financial Services Committee Libra Hearing

Using a relatively subjective method, The Block put the sentiments around the questions into four categories - Negative (attacking Facebook and offering no positive comments), Neutral-Negative (overly critical at times, but balanced on other questions), Neutral (indifference, balanced, focused on getting the facts) and Constructive (inquisitive, positive, congratulatory).

 

Altogether, there was a wide bipartisan distribution of core questions asked by the Committee (counted close to 19 unique themes), with over 75% of core question sentiment falling within either Neutral or Constructive buckets.