# Facebook regularly suppressed conservative new **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 11, 2016, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-regularly-suppressed-conservative-new/754527 "2016-05-11T08:29:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2016, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-regularly-suppressed-conservative-new/754527/1 "2016-05-11T08:29:29Z")
So sayeth [Gizmodo](http://gizmodo.com/former-facebook-workers-we-routinely-suppressed-conser-1775461006). > [@](#): > > Facebook workers routinely suppressed news stories of interest to conservative readers from the social network’s influential “trending” news section, according to a former journalist who worked on the project. This individual says that workers prevented stories about the right-wing CPAC gathering, Mitt Romney, Rand Paul, and other conservative topics from appearing in the highly-influential section, even though they were organically trending among the site’s users. What do you think about this? Personally, I don’t have a problem with sites having biases, but only as long as they’re open and honest about it. Facebook’s trending news is supposed to be user driven so suppressing stories isn’t cricket in my book. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2016, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-regularly-suppressed-conservative-new/754527/2 "2016-05-11T08:40:19Z")
For a business dependent on users of all political stripes, yeah, it’s a problem. Not very good advertising. (FTR, I’ve never even seen the ‘trending news’ section. I have Facebook because I need it to post conveniently on certain websites, and occasionally to communicate with family members and friends.) ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2016, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-regularly-suppressed-conservative-new/754527/3 "2016-05-11T11:14:30Z")
Eh, I don’t know: > [@](#): > > Another former curator agreed that the operation had an aversion to right-wing news sources. “It was absolutely bias. We were doing it subjectively. It just depends on who the curator is and what time of day it is,” said the former curator. “Every once in awhile a Red State or conservative news source would have a story. But we would have to go and find the same story from a more neutral outlet that wasn’t as biased.” > > Stories covered by conservative outlets (like Breitbart, Washington Examiner, and Newsmax) that were trending enough to be picked up by Facebook’s algorithm were excluded unless mainstream sites like the New York Times, the BBC, and CNN covered the same stories I don’t have a problem with the “curators” selecting more reputable news sources. But then again, if they’re telling everyone this trending news feed is user driven, that doesn’t sit well with me. But also, if you’re getting your news from FB, that’s kind of a problem with in itself. So, I don’t know… ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2016, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-regularly-suppressed-conservative-new/754527/4 "2016-05-11T11:52:48Z")
“organically trending” ? ---
**Author:** ![Whiskey\_Dickens](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/9fc348/32.png) [@Whiskey\_Dickens](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whiskey_Dickens)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2016, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-regularly-suppressed-conservative-new/754527/5 "2016-05-11T13:23:15Z")
Something something, reality has a well-known liberal bias. ---
**Author:** ![lazybratsche](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ba8739/32.png) [@lazybratsche](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lazybratsche)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2016, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-regularly-suppressed-conservative-new/754527/6 "2016-05-11T13:31:52Z")
**Two** anonymous, conservative, former Facebook news curators felt that news on conservative topics was not being sufficiently promoted. That may be true, and I find it plausible enough, but it’s a really long way from there to “Facebook suppressed conservative news.” ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2016, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-regularly-suppressed-conservative-new/754527/7 "2016-05-11T13:51:16Z")
So, it sounds like they were doing the exact opposite of Yahoo, and eschewing click bait articles. Seems like a reasonable policy, considering what a trash heap the Yahoo front page is most days. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2016, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-regularly-suppressed-conservative-new/754527/8 "2016-05-11T14:06:05Z")
Avoiding biased sources is fine, as long as they avoid the ones that are biased either direction. I do note that I’ve seen stuff from both sides all the time–lots of stuff about the Republican primaries, and I even have something from Phil Robertson about trans issues that I’ve avoided reading–assuming it would show up here at some point. Looking just now on the politics tab, I have 8 things that have to do with the election, and I’d count three of them as being right wing-ish and 3 left wing-ish (in that they are criticizing the right wing). They are nearly all anti-Trump, though–only the Robertson thing and the thing about this very topic are not. Yeah, they’re covering a story about their own bias. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2016, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-regularly-suppressed-conservative-new/754527/9 "2016-05-11T14:32:53Z")
The Trending stories are often the most ridiculous, vapid, useless pieces of “news” headlines I’ll read in a day (and I read Buzzfeed). I am not going to lose any sleep over the idea that when they do have a serious news piece in there, it may not actually be trending and/or it may be at the expense of leaving out a story from the right. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2016, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-regularly-suppressed-conservative-new/754527/10 "2016-05-11T14:40:07Z")
Having a bias over what you highlight as “trending” is not the same as having a biased newsfeed, which _is_ user-driven. I tell Facebook what I want to see and what I don’t want to see, and it’s been doing a pretty good job. I don’t know what the “trending news section” even is. I just occasionally see “Trending: Prince”, for example, when my friends posted stuff about his death last month. And there is certainly no shortage of conservative “news” in my feed. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2016, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-regularly-suppressed-conservative-new/754527/11 "2016-05-11T14:48:41Z")
I must’ve have fallen through their algorithmic cracks, because I don’t even have a “Trending” section on my Facebook page. Maybe I turned it off or didn’t turn it on. Guess I’m not missing anything. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2016, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-regularly-suppressed-conservative-new/754527/12 "2016-05-11T20:52:31Z")
Well, I wouldn’t trust anything that appears on Breitbart, for sure. So I’d applaud a decision not to encourage them. To me, the key would be what they do with equally biased and erroneous left wing sources. I’m thinking here of something like US Uncut, which is as untrustworthy as any conservative site. If these articles are accepted uncritically they’re making a mistake. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2016, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-regularly-suppressed-conservative-new/754527/13 "2016-05-11T21:06:19Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > The Trending stories are often the most ridiculous, vapid, useless pieces of “news” headlines I’ll read in a day (and I read Buzzfeed). See, to be a really informed citizen you’ve got to read Gizmodo. And tweet. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2016, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-regularly-suppressed-conservative-new/754527/14 "2016-05-12T18:05:47Z")
It would be nice if Facebook news stories were balanced (and they may be for all I know.) But if they’re not, FB is under no legal obligation to be balanced. Anyone who depends on FB for news is not that wise anyway IMO. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2016, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-regularly-suppressed-conservative-new/754527/15 "2016-05-12T18:22:27Z")
I would expect Facebook’s actual user demographic to be to the left of the kinds of people who do NOT use Facebook,. Nobody ever went broke preaching to the choir. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2016, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-regularly-suppressed-conservative-new/754527/16 "2016-05-12T20:42:36Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > I must’ve have fallen through their algorithmic cracks, because I don’t even have a “Trending” section on my Facebook page. Maybe I turned it off or didn’t turn it on. Guess I’m not missing anything. 😛 If you ever figure out how you turned it off, I’ll pay you fifty bucks to teach me. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2016, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-regularly-suppressed-conservative-new/754527/17 "2016-05-12T21:11:52Z")
> [@control-z](#): > > It would be nice if Facebook news stories were balanced (and they may be for all I know.) But if they’re not, FB is under no legal obligation to be balanced. Indeed, but only as long as they’re open and honest about it. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2016, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-regularly-suppressed-conservative-new/754527/18 "2016-05-12T21:32:58Z")
That this “story” is being touted by FoxNews and Republicans who regularly appear on FoxNews is the height of a double-standard. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2016, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-regularly-suppressed-conservative-new/754527/19 "2016-05-12T22:48:05Z")
Not treating right wing propaganda sites as legitimate news sources seems like a perfectly acceptable policy. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2016, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-regularly-suppressed-conservative-new/754527/20 "2016-05-12T22:50:37Z")
“Insufficiently promoted”? According to whom? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-regularly-suppressed-conservative-new/754527.md?page=2)