Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg
said in a post on the social media site Thursday that he plans to meet with leading conservatives over allegations that right-leaning news was suppressed in the "Trending Topics" section of the users' newsfeeds.
"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," Zuckerberg wrote.
"To serve our diverse community, we are committed to building a platform for all ideas," Zuckerberg said. "Trending Topics is designed to surface the most newsworthy and popular conversations on Facebook. We have rigorous guidelines that do not permit the prioritization of one viewpoint over another or the suppression of political perspectives."
Zuckerberg said Facebook is investigating allegations
reported by Gizmodo this week that news curators suppressed conservative news and some right-leaning websites, including Newsmax and Breitbart, unless the news was also reported on other news websites it deemed mainstream.
The former curators who talked to Gizmodo also said stories such as the Ferguson, Missouri protests were added to streams when they didn't make the Trending Topics list naturally through Facebook's existing algorithms.
Zuckerberg said the investigation so far has found no evidence to support the allegations, but that corrective action will be taken if it does find such evidence.
The Guardian has reported it has seen leaked documents that show that Facebook does allow editors to tweak the algorithm.
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