Scalper1 News
An online news report suggests that Facebook ( FB ) employees suppress news stories from conservative media outlets from appearing on the social network’s influential “Trending” news section. The report from Gizmodo says the claims were made by a former contractor, described as politically conservative, who worked with Facebook. The contractor said stories on conservative topics were prevented from appearing in the Trending section even though they were organically trending among the site’s users. The person was part of a team known as “news curators,” described as a small group of journalists who curate the Trending module, which appears on the upper right section of Facebook’s home page. News curators aren’t Facebook employees but work as contractors. The article also said another former curator agreed that the news curation operation had an aversion to right-wing news sources. Stories covered by conservative outlets such as Breitbart, Washington Examiner and Newsmax that were trending enough to be picked up by Facebook’s algorithm were excluded unless mainstream sites like the New York Times, the BBC and CNN covered the same stories, the article said. The Trending section posts stories that have recently become popular on Facebook on five categories: news, politics, science, technology and sports and entertainment. The feature lets users customize the list of trending topics they see. According to Gizmodo, other former curators interviewed denied consciously suppressing conservative news. Gizmodo was unable to determine if left-wing news topics or sources were similarly suppressed. Gizmodo said Facebook did not respond when asked for comments about the claims, and the company didn’t respond to an IBD email seeking comment. Scalper1 News
Scalper1 News