Greg's Corner

Off topic Friday: Is Facebook censoring conservative news stories?

DISCLAIMER: This blog post is not endorsing one political party or candidate over another. It is merely discussing a topic where politics is involved.

Earlier this week an anonymous former Facebook employee claimed to the media that Facebook purposely tries to keep conservative news topics out if its trending news subjects. It’s gotten so much attention in some conservative circles that US Senator John Thune from South Dakota has called upon Facebook to provide information to Congress about the allegations. Some have said that Congress should not be getting involved in how Facebook conducts their business however studies have shown that 30 percent of Americans get their news from Facebook.

Then there’s the argument that if Facebook is secretly promoting progressive news stories is that really censorship? The concept of censorship can only be really carried out by an agent of the state, i.e. the government. Facebook is a private tech entity and legally could exercise any kind of political leaning it wished. However one would think it would be a bad business decision to alienate possibly half of their userbase.

What do you think? Is Facebook purposely squelching conservative leaning stories or is it just paranoia among some politicos?