The chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee defended his inquiry to Facebook over accusations of anti-conservative bias, telling The Daily Signal he simply wants to make sure consumers aren’t being misled by the social media giant.
“We’re not interested in regulating any media platform out there. All we want to do is ensure that consumers know with clarity what it is, what [Facebook’s] policy is, and what the information is that they’re getting and how that’s put together,” Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., told The Daily Signal’s Editor-in-Chief Rob Bluey during a Facebook Live discussion in Thune’s Capitol Hill office on Thursday.
On May 9, Gizmodo reported that a former Facebook contractor observed instances when conservative news stories were suppressed from Facebook’s Trending Topics section, while other stories were injected even though they were not actually trending.
The allegations “were pretty difficult to overlook,” said Thune, who also serves as chairman of the Republican Conference Committee, the Senate GOP’s third-ranking leader.
“The allegations that were made suggest that [Facebook] actually had curators who were suppressing conservative content and infusing liberal content,” Thune said. “We’re just trying to get to the bottom of it.”
Thune sent a letter to Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg on May 10, asking questions related to the allegations made by Gizmodo and for Facebook “to provide some clarity for what their policy actually is,” Thune said.
“All we were interested in really was ensuring that how they describe what they do in terms of putting together the Trending Topics actually match the reality. And that the consumers weren’t being misled,” Thune said.
“They have a lot of users out there, over 160 million in the United States. If they’re representing themselves as a neutral platform that simply aggregates these stories and posts them based on a computer algorithm, that’s number of clicks, that’s one thing.”
Thune asked in his letter to Zuckerberg:
What steps is Facebook taking to investigate claims of politically motivated manipulation of news stories in the Trending Topics section? If such claims are substantiated, what steps will Facebook take to hold the responsible individuals accountable?
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid’s office “slammed” Thune and his Republican Senate colleagues’ inquiry to Facebook, Politico reported.
Facebook responded to Thune on Monday, saying the company had “initiated an investigation into the policies and practices around Trending Topics to determine if anyone working on the product acted in ways that are inconsistent with our policies and mission.”
Thune says he felt Facebook took the response seriously.
In a letter responding to Thune, Facebook General Counsel Colin Stretch wrote:
Our investigation has revealed no evidence of systematic political bias in the selection or prominence of stories included in the Trending Topics feature. Our data analysis indicated that conservative and liberal topics are approved as trending topics at virtually identical rates.
Facebook “went on to suggest that they’re going to make some changes in their policy. I thought it was a good outcome,” Thune said. “It was an issue that needed to be raised.”
Conservative leaders were invited to a meeting with Zuckerberg last week to discuss the situation. The Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint and Bluey were among those in attendance.
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Thune says “by and large” Facebook has “been very beneficial for its users.”
“The platform creates a very unique way in which people can connect and communicate and get information,” Thune said.