Right-wing website Breitbart posted a banner headline on its home page, reading “Cucked by Zuck: Establishment Conservatives Rock Up for Pointless Meeting With Facebook”.
Advertisement
Sixteen people, including Glenn Beck, Jim DeMint, SE Cupp, Dana Perino, and Tucker Carlson, attended the sit-down at Facebook headquarters.
The leaked papers popped up after Gizmodo reported claims by former Facebook workers that colleagues prevented conservative topics and publications from appearing in the Trending Topics sidebar next to users’ primary news feeds.
American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp said Facebook had a history of agitating against conservatives, alleging that his group’s content “egregiously underperforms” on Facebook when compared to Twitter and other platforms. When an aide told him that the allotted hour was running out, he kept it going for another 15 minutes.
And ignoring conservatives would be bad business for Facebook, Zuckerberg added.
In a Facebook post as a follow-up to the meeting, Zuckerberg acknowledged both Trump and Fox News have more of a following than any other candidate and news organization but admitted, “Still, I know many conservatives don’t trust that our platform surfaces content without a political bias”.
‘I want to have a direct conversation about what Facebook stands for and how we can be sure our platform stays as open as possible, ‘ the statement said.
The original allegations of bias were published by the tech blog Gizmodo, putting Facebook into a defensive crouch.
Justin Osofsky, vice president of global operations, said the guidelines ensure that stories in trending topics represent “the most important popular stories, regardless of where they fall on the ideological spectrum”.
He added that the firm has not found any evidence that the reports of stories with conservative points of view being suppressed are true in internal investigations.
Facebook has denied the allegations, reportedly made by a former employee.
“As a legal matter, Facebook is not required to be even-handed”, said Eugene Volokh, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.
“Mark Zuckerberg reaffirmed his commitment to give everyone a voice on Facebook”, said Bluey after the meeting.
A letter the Senate Commerce Committee sent to Zuckerberg inquiring about the bias allegations could be a good start, he said.
That’s why Wednesday’s meeting took place.
Among others in attendance, according to Facebook, was American Enterprise Institute president Arthur Brooks, Tea Party Patriots CEO Jenny Beth Martin, and Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center.
Advertisement
While at Facebook, they met with Zuckerberg and Facebook executives, asked questions about Trending Topics, got training on how to best engage their audience on Facebook and extend their reach and a demo of virtual reality technology Oculus.
