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Mark Zuckerberg Denies Facebook Trends Manipulation, Former Employee Says Site Surpressed Conservative Stories

By Val Powell
Published on: 02:27 PST, May 13, 2016

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has issued a statement regarding recent reports claiming manipulation on the social media site’s trending topics. According to the allegations, the company is suppressing stories that have conservative tones.

The internet entrepreneur and philanthropist said that their team is taking the report very seriously. In fact, a full investigation is already being done to guarantee that the company’s teams advocate the integrity of the business.

Initial findings, however, showed “no evidence that this report is true.” Nonetheless, Mark Zuckerberg promised that he would take the necessary steps to address the problem should they find anything not in conformity with their principles.

He reiterated that Facebook is all about giving a voice to everyone.

“We believe the world is better when people from different backgrounds and with different ideas all have the power to share their thoughts and experiences,” Mark Zuckerberg wrote.

“We are one global community where anyone can share anything — from a loving photo of a mother and her baby to intellectual analysis of political events,” he added.

To show his commitment to addressing the allegations, Zuckerberg made a pledge to conservatives via his Facebook account.

“In the coming weeks, I’ll also be inviting leading conservatives and people from across the political spectrum to talk with me about this and share their points of view. I want to have a direct conversation about what Facebook stands for and how we can be sure our platform stays as open as possible.”

Yet again, he stressed that the tools that the social media site builds are geared toward giving the people a voice and to be able to bring the “global community together.”

The controversy began last Monday after a Gizmodo report claimed that Facebook workers “had routinely prevented stories with a conservative slant from appearing on the site’s ‘trending topics’ list.”

The report was anchored on accounts of former Facebook curators who also claimed that there were instances when they have “forced” stories in the controversial trending topics list even before they actually became trending.

The revelation is not in conformity with Facebook’s proclamations that algorithms determine when a topic becomes trending. The site claims that after identifying a trend, its team then reviews it and determines “whether the topic was tied to a current, real news event.”

Mark Zuckerberg is not the only official who has since issued a statement about the matter.

Facebook Vice President for Search Tom Stocky also denied claims of bias last Tuesday.

“We do not insert stories artificially into trending topics, and do not instruct our reviewers to do so,” he said.

Despite the statements issued by the Facebook officials, the issue of bias has not been silenced.

“They market it as this organic collection of things that are trending,” said Sean Davis, the co-founder of conservative site the Federalist. “They are walling off huge areas people are talking about. That’s the real problem. We’re generally for free association, for private enterprise.”

“They are walling off huge areas people are talking about. That’s the real problem. We’re generally for free association, for private enterprise. If their investors like it, we’re free to criticize it and they’re free to do what they want. The beef from conservatives has not been that there’s bias, it’s been that there’s not admission of it,” he added.

Even the Senate is already looking into the matter. Republican Senator John Thune demanded the company shed light on the accusation of using Facebook for political agenda. He sent Mark Zuckerberg a letter requiring him to explain the accusations.

The senator is the chairman of the Senate Commerce committee, which has authority over technology firms.

However, it is still unclear whether the U.S. Senate has power over how the social media site, or even other companies, promotes articles considering the existence of the American free-speech law.

[Photo by David Ramos/Getty Images]

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