Facebook denies scrubbing conservative viewpoints after bias claims spark outrage

Facebook on Tuesday denied allegations that it scrubs its site of news articles by and about political conservatives, amid outrage over the claims.

The social media giant said the popularity of news stories is determined by an algorithm, then audited - never manipulated - by review team members to confirm that the topics are in fact trending news items.

But tech news outlet Gizmodo reported Monday that a former news curator alleged that articles from politically conservative outlets - particularly when written about conservative subjects - were deliberately omitted from Facebook’s “trending news” sidebar of popular stories.

“I’d come on shift and I’d discover that CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) or (former presidential candidate) Mitt Romney or (radio talk show host) Glenn Beck or popular conservative topics wouldn’t be trending because either the curator didn’t recognise the news topic or it was like they had a bias,” the individual told Gizmodo anonymously.

According to Gizmodo, which also spoke to other former news curators, stories covered by conservative media that were trending enough to be picked up by Facebook’s algorithm were only included if also covered by “mainstream sites” such as The New York Times, the BBC or CNN.

There was no evidence that management mandated or was aware of any political bias at work, Gizmodo reported, noting that one former curator “described the omissions as a function of his colleagues’ judgments.”