Facebook downplayed conservative news, says former worker

Facebook workers often excluded conservative news topics from the site’s trending news section, Gizmodo reported Monday.

The technology site interviewed several former curators for the site’s news section, one of whom said that he noticed popular conservative topics were left off the homepage list.

Gizmodo published a story last week detailing the conditions behind the trending news team, which is required to write headlines and summaries for dozens of news stories to be included on the website’s ticker. The workers, who were contracted, were told to omit news about Facebook itself, though Facebook did not have an explicit policy to remove right-leaning topics from the section.

One of the former workers, a self-identified conservative, told Gizmodo he often saw popular conservative topics like Rand Paul or Mitt Romney absent from the trending news section when he started his shift.

“It wasn’t trending news at all,” said the worker, who kept a list of the missing topics and submitted them to Gizmodo. “It was an opinion.”

According to the worker, some of the missing topics included Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker; the conservative Drudge Report; Lois Lerner, the IRS director who allegedly targeted conservative groups; and Navy SEAL Chris Kyle.

Gizmodo reported that it was “unable to determine if left-wing news topics or sources were similarly suppressed.”

According to Facebook, the section shows “topics that have recently become popular on Facebook… based on a number of factors including engagement, timeliness, Pages you've liked and your location.”

A Facebook spokesperson who asked not to be identified said the company “takes allegations of bias very seriously.”

“Facebook is a platform for people and perspectives from across the political spectrum,” the spokesperson wrote in a statement. "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.”

This story was originally published May 9, 2016 at 9:59 AM with the headline "Facebook downplayed conservative news, says former worker."