Last week, technology blog Gizmodo published an article alleging that Facebook routinely suppressed conservative-leaning news stories from appearing in the social platform’s “Trending” section. The story initially set off a media firestorm as outlets such as The Guardian, The New York Times, Reuters, NPR and more raced to publish articles capitalizing on the controversy.
If you’re not an avid Facebook user—and I count myself in this category—let me bring you up to speed. The “Trending” section appears in the upper right corner of a user’s home page. The section features a number of “trending” articles that, according to several unnamed former editorial employees interviewed for the Gizmodo article, were curated by individual editors rather than relying exclusively on algorithms to determine timeliness and value to individual readers. The sources go on to say that these “human curators” were instructed to “inject” selected stories into the trending news section and claims have been made that curators frequently passed over stories that would resonate with conservative readers in favor or more left-leaning topics.
Does It Matter?
Given the current political climate in the U.S. and a seemingly never-ending presidential campaign season, it’s no surprise that conservative political figures and organizations would take umbrage at this potential slight. For instance, the Republican Party quickly responded with a blog post stating that “with 167 million U.S. Facebook users reading stories highlighted in the trending section, Facebook has the power to greatly influence the presidential election.” The following day, John Thune, Republican chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, also joined the fray with a statement that “Facebook must answer these serious allegations and hold those responsible to account if there has been political bias in the dissemination of trending news.”
With more than one billion users a day, it’s clear that Facebook has access to an immense audience. However, one wonders how influential the platform is as a news provider. Granted, the social networking platform has recently begun paying news organizations to produce live video streams for its Facebook Live section, but at the time of writing this post, the three trending stories that appeared at the top of my feed were about Sinead O’Connor going missing in Chicago, Louis C.K. announcing new tour dates, and Tyga sharing details about his break up with Kylie Jenner. Not exactly examples of hard news and certainly nothing that may influence an election.
Facebook Responds
To its credit, Facebook responded to the allegations quickly with statements from staff managing the trending section, as well as Chairman and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg. On the same day the Gizmodo story published, Tom Stocky, who oversees the team responsible for trending topics, posted a lengthy statement via Facebook describing how the trending section was designed to work, acknowledging the serious nature of the allegations and assuring readers that the platform has “found no evidence that the anonymous allegations are true.”
Three days later Zuckerberg followed suit with a statement that the company will conduct a full investigation into the claims of political bias and a promise to invite “leading conservatives” to share their point of view. According to The Guardian, the first two of such meetings will occur this week with conservative commentator Glenn Beck and one of Donald Trump’s advisors. In addition, Facebook VP Global Operations Justin Osofsky posted “Information About Trending Topics,” a detailed overview of how the section is curated and it’s likely more statements will be issued from the company to create a sense of transparency as this story continues to receive attention.
Maintaining Perspective
Whether or not Facebook intentionally suppressed politically conservative content is yet to be proven. The controversy is, however, creating a wealth of coverage for an ever-hungry news industry seeking fodder that will encourage audiences to leave behind newsfeeds rampant with baby photos, kitten videos and absurd memes for more newsworthy topics.
While the platform certainly has an immense following, it’s important to maintain some perspective on what users are seeking through their visits to Facebook. Is the draw a greater connection to community or in-depth reporting on critical news? As time moves forward and the social networking platform continues to evolve perhaps the latter will prevail. Until then, this Facebook user recommends relying on established news media for authentic, ethical and unbiased coverage of all topics—whichever way they may lean.