The social moment of the debate on Facebook proved to be the heated exchange between Chris Christie and Rand Paul over government privacy policy.
New data from Facebook showed that while immigration was the top issue discussed and real estate mogul Donald Trump was the candidate most discussed, the give and take over how far the government should go in collecting data was the big social moment.
During the two-hour Thursday night debate, 7.5 million people throughout Facebook in the U.S. made 20 million interactions (likes, posts, comments and shares) related to the debate.
After immigration, top issues discussed were racial matters, the economy, education and abortion.
Top candidates discussed were Trump, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson; Paul, the U.S. senator from Kentucky; former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Christie, the governor of New Jersey.
Paul, who has long railed against overly aggressive government intrusion into people’s lives, said "I want to collect more records from terrorists," he said, "but less records from innocent Americans."
Christie, a former prosecutor, said that notion was "completely ridiculous" and accused Paul of "sitting in a subcommittee, just blowing hot air about this."
David Lightman: 202-383-6101, @lightmandavid