USA TODAY International Edition
Facebook under fire for perceived bias
Conservatives seek explanation as company pledges to bring in investigators
SAN FRANCISCO – During his testimony on Capitol Hill last month, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg batted down accusations that the giant social network has a liberal bent.
But last week, Facebook said it would bring in advisers to investigate whether it suppresses conservative voices, the latest in a post-Cambridge Analytica goodwill campaign to rebuild trust with its 2.2 billion users.
Conservative claims that Facebook’s liberal staff treats them unfairly have been simmering for years — and exploded in 2016 — and are gaining momentum as Facebook concedes it made missteps in moderating the vast amount of content that streams through its platform.
A joint statement last week from more than 60 conservatives demanded that Facebook and other tech giants “rectify their credibility with the conservative movement” by explaining why content is taken down and accounts deleted and by including more conservative groups on its list of advisers.
“Social media censorship and online restriction of conservatives and their organizations have reached a crisis level,” the statement read.
According to Facebook, former Arizona Republican senator Jon Kyl and a team at the Washington law firm of Covington and Burling will solicit feedback from conservative groups. That, says Joel Kaplan, Facebook’s vice president of global policy, will “help us improve over time.”
Conservative public policy think tank the Heritage Foundation will meet with Facebook executives. Klon Kitchen, the Heritage Foundation’s senior fellow for technology national security and science policy, hosted an event with Facebook’s head of global policy management, Monika Bickert.
“I think it’s wholly right that conservatives want to be treated fairly and enjoy the benefits of the service like anyone else,” Kitchen told USA TODAY.
The growing chorus of conservatives demanding answers from Facebook comes after the disclosure that 87 million people had their data improperly obtained by Cambridge Analytica drew bipartisan condemnation.
In Washington, Facebook needs Republican support to ward off regulation threatened by Democratic lawmakers.
Facebook has made efforts to be more transparent after blunders policing content around the globe and across the political spectrum. Last month, it published internal guidelines used to decide what users can and cannot post on the social network and introduced an appeals process for Facebook users who believe their posts were removed in error.
In 2016, Facebook came under fire for reports that its moderators suppressed conservative voices, leading to an inquiry by the Senate Commerce Committee. Facebook said its investigation found no evidence of bias but held a meeting with big names from conservative political and media circles that seemed to mend fences for a time.
The catalyst for Facebook’s latest vow to address possible conservative bias? Zuckerberg’s appearance on Capitol Hill.
Republican lawmakers used some of their allotted time to accuse Facebook and other tech companies of leftwing favoritism. “There are a great many Americans who I think are deeply concerned that Facebook and other tech companies are engaged in a pervasive pattern of bias and political censorship,” said Sen. Ted Cruz, RTexas.
Zuckerberg denied Facebook’s policies are a product of its liberal cocoon in Silicon Valley but conceded that Facebook doesn’t always make the right call when removing conservative content.
Social networks such as Facebook try to strike a balance between users’ rights to freely express themselves and keeping hate, abuse and misinformation off their platforms.
In September, President Trump boosters Lynnette Hardaway and her sister, Rochelle Richardson, known as Diamond and Silk, noticed that Facebook was limiting the reach of their posts. After months of trying to wrangle an explanation, they say they received an email that their content was considered “unsafe to the community.”
“When you see that happen to highprofile people like Diamond and Silk, more and more conservatives are saying: ‘There but for the grace of God go I,” said Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center.
Bozell says he plans to ask Zuckerberg for a meeting “with the hope we can come out of it with a commitment to transparency.”
“Until there is some kind of transparency in the process, it’s hard to have faith in it. There are real questions about what’s going on,” he said. “Is this for real, or is it window dressing?”