Facebook Says It's Taking News Bias Allegations "Very Seriously"
Facebook’s guidelines “do not permit the suppression of political perspectives,” a company spokesperson told BuzzFeed News.
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Facebook is taking allegations that employees routinely suppressed trending news stories of interest to conservative reader "very seriously," a spokesperson for the social media giant said Monday.
Earlier in the day, the website Gizmodo published a report citing several former Facebook "news curators" who said they were instructed to "inject" certain stories into the influential "trending" section — even if they were actually trending — and to suppress others, usually catering to a liberal bias.
The curators also added that they were instructed to block any news about Facebook itself in the trending section.
A spokesperson for Facebook told BuzzFeed News that they are taking the "allegations of bias" seriously, but said rigorous guidelines "do not permit the suppression of political perspectives."
Here is the full statement:
We take allegations of bias very seriously. Facebook is a platform for people and perspectives from across the political spectrum. Trending Topics shows you the popular topics and hashtags that are being talked about on Facebook. There are rigorous guidelines in place for the review team to ensure consistency and neutrality.
These guidelines do not permit the suppression of political perspectives. Nor do they permit the prioritization of one viewpoint over another or one news outlet over another. These guidelines do not prohibit any news outlet from appearing in Trending Topics.
Keyword: BuzzFeed - Tech
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