In a report by the technology news site Gizmodo that was published on Monday that sparked widespread comment on social media, it is alleged that workers at Facebook have often omitted conservative political stories from the website’s “trending” list to avoid controversies.

While “artificially” adding other stories into the trending list, according to Gizmodo, workers at the world’s largest social media site “routinely suppressed news stories of interest to conservative readers,” the technology news site claimed quoting an unnamed former Facebook employee.

There are “rigorous guidelines in place” to maintain neutrality and said that these guidelines do not prohibit any news outlet from appearing in trending topics, Facebook reportedly told news agency Reuters on Monday.

However to questions about whether employees had suppressed conservative-leaning news, here was no direct response from Facebook.

“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,” a spokesperson for Facebook said, reported Reuters.

With several journalists and commentators criticizing Facebook for alleged bias, the report by the technology news site alarmed some social media users.

“Aside from fueling right-wing persecution, this is a key reminder of dangers of Silicon Valley controlling content,” tweeted journalist Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald).

“Well, you go to Hell, Facebook,” tweeted Kyle Feldscher (@Kyle_Feldscher), a reporter at the Washington Examiner, a conservative-leaning publication.

“For anyone who cares about press freedom, this is frightening stuff,” tweeted Bloomberg Editor Bill Grueskin (@BGrueskin), with a link to Gizmodo’s story.

One of the top-ten trending topics on Twitter in the U.S. was “Former Facebook Workers” which happened quickly after the Gizmodo story broke.

It would closely monitor how the claims against Facebook unfold, said the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), one of the groups reportedly blocked from Facebook’s trending list.

“If we can confirm that the allegations are true and accurate, that would be disappointing,” said CPAC Communications Director Ian Walters. However he also added that as of now he was sensitive to the fact that the claims are as of yet unconfirmed.

The “trending” section of the site “shows you topics that have recently become popular on Facebook”, a post on Facebook’s help center said. Some of the factors that determine what trends show up for each Facebook user as listed in the Facebook’s help center included issues like “engagement, timeliness, Pages you’ve liked and your location”.

Facebook users can also manually remove certain topics from their trending list.

(Adapted from Reuters)

Categories: Strategy