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Facebook says it found no conservative bias, changing trending topics anyway

By Andrew V. Pestano
Facebook, headquartered in Willow Road in Menlo Park, Calif., faced recent criticism after being accused of bias against conservative news outlets. The social media giant was accused by anonymous former employees of blocking conservative news from its Trending Topics feature -- a claim Facebook rejects. File photo by Terry Schmitt/UPI
Facebook, headquartered in Willow Road in Menlo Park, Calif., faced recent criticism after being accused of bias against conservative news outlets. The social media giant was accused by anonymous former employees of blocking conservative news from its Trending Topics feature -- a claim Facebook rejects. File photo by Terry Schmitt/UPI | License Photo

MENLO PARK, Calif., May 24 (UPI) -- Facebook said it plans to make changes to its trending topics feature after it was accused of anti-conservative media bias, though the social media giant said it found no evidence to support the allegations.

"Our investigation has revealed no evidence of systematic political bias in the selection or prominence of stories included in the trending topics feature. Our data analysis indicated that conservative and liberal topics are approved as trending topics at virtually identical rates," Facebook said in a letter to Sen. John Thune, R- S.D., sent Monday. "We were also unable to substantiate any of the specific allegations of politically motivated suppression of particular subjects or sources. In fact, we confirmed that most of the subjects mentioned in media reports were included as trending topics on multiple occasions."

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Last week, Facebook officials met with Thune, who chairs the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee, to discuss the political bias allegations brought forward by anonymous former employees who said they worked as news curators. The meeting also addressed Facebook's internal investigation methods related to the allegations.

"At the same time, our investigation could not fully exclude the possibility of isolated improper actions or unintentional bias in the implementation of our guidelines or policies," Facebook added.

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Changes that will be made include updating terminology in Facebook's guidelines to determine trending topics as to improve clarity, improved training that teaches content on the feature should not be based on poltics or ideology, while increasing additional controls oversight on the Trending Topics team.

Facebook said it would also stop relying on external websites and news outlets to determine the importance of a topic.

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