Senate committee questions Facebook over news selection

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Technology | Tue May 10, 2016 3:22pm EDT

Senate committee questions Facebook over news selection

BY AMY TENNERY

A U.S. Senate committee launched an inquiry on Tuesday into how social media website Facebook selects its news stories after a report that company employees blocked news about conservative issues from its "trending" list.

The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation asked Facebook Chairman and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg in a letter to answer questions about the company's news curation practices and its trending topics section.

The investigation comes after Gizmodo reported on Monday that a former Facebook employee claimed workers "routinely suppressed news stories of interest to conservative readers," while "artificially" adding other stories to the trending list.

U.S. Senator John Thune, the chairman of the committee, told reporters Tuesday his primary concern was that Facebook may be engaging in deceptive behavior if employees meddled with what trending news was displayed.

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-socialmedia-idUSKCN0Y12EU

Earlier LBN thread: Facebook now directly denies report of biased trends, says there’s no evidence

[MH1]

1. Are you F'n Kidding Me?

Come on, folks, we need to take back the Senate.

[Actor]

2. this committee of fascist pigs can go fuck themselves