As you might have heard, Facebook is currently embroiled in a bit of controversy over its Trending Topics feature. Earlier reports suggested that Facebook relied on human curators to create Trending Topics, which in turn led to the alleged censoring of news that is deemed to be more conservative in nature.Facebook issued a statement several days ago denying the claims, and now it looks like Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg has decided to chime in as well, essentially echoing Facebook’s earlier statement and denied that their guidelines do not permit prioritizing one viewpoint over the other.
According to Zuckerberg, “This week, there was a report suggesting that Facebook contractors working on Trending Topics suppressed stories with conservative viewpoints. We take this report very seriously and are conducting a full investigation to ensure our teams upheld the integrity of this product.”
He adds, “We have found no evidence that this report is true. If we find anything against our principles, you have my commitment that we will take additional steps to address it.” That being said despite the denials, a recently leaked set of guidelines obtained by The Guardian revealed how editors can inject stories into Trending Topics as well as blacklisting certain topics as well.
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