Facebook has denied the allegations, reportedly made by a former employee.
Facebook has denied the allegations, reportedly made by a former employee.
Washington
: Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg meets Wednesday with leading US conservatives to try to head off a storm over allegations that the social network suppressed right-leaning political viewpoints.
Zuckerberg proposed the meeting after technology news outlet Gizmodo last week reported allegations that Facebook was deliberately omitting articles with conservative viewpoints from a sidebar that lists popular stories. Facebook has denied the allegations, reportedly made by a former employee.
In a Facebook post last week, Zuckerberg said he had launched a -"full investigation-" but no evidence had been found to back up the allegations.
-"We have rigorous guidelines that do not permit the prioritization of one viewpoint over another or the suppression of political perspectives,-" he wrote.
Zuckerberg is to meet with about a dozen conservatives including political commentator Glenn Beck and Fox News talk show host Dana Perino, a Facebook spokeswoman told AFP in the runup to the meeting.
In an interview with Fox News on Tuesday, Perino said she believed Facebook was taking the allegations seriously.
-"I also think it is probably fairly solvable. So I am looking forward to going tomorrow to hear more about what they found,-" she said.
Others invited included Zac Moffatt, a political consultant who worked for former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney; Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute; and Barry Bennett, an advisor to presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
-"I'll listen with an open mind and will help suggest solutions. And I'm especially eager to help explain why the controversy has upset so many conservative Americans,-" Brooks wrote on Facebook this week.
Not all conservatives accepted the invitation, however. American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp said Facebook had a history of agitating against conservatives, alleging that his group's content -"egregiously underperforms-" on Facebook when compared to Twitter and other platforms.
-"We will not be attending this meeting. We know one meeting cannot possibly resolve all of the above mentioned issues,-" Schlapp said in a statement Tuesday.
The debate comes with Facebook and other social networks playing a growing role in how people get their news, prompting concern over whether this information is promoted or filtered by online services and applications.
