A GOP senator is demanding answers from Facebook honcho Mark Zuckerberg about how the site handles its trending topics section after allegations of an
anti-conservative bias were revealed.
South Dakota Sen. John Thune, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, sent the letter Tuesday asking that Zuckerberg "arrange for your staff including employees responsible for trending topics to brief committee staff on this issue."
A copy of the letter was posted by
Gizmodo, which originally reported the allegations of a former news "curator" at the social media site who alleged news from conservative sites like Breitbart and Newsmax were routinely blacklisted.
Some of the Thune's demands include that Zuckerberg provide a list of all news stories removed from, or injected into, the trending topics section since 2014, and a count of how many stories representing topics of interest to conservatives were excluded by curators of the trending topics section.
Zuckerberg has until May 24 to respond.
"Facebook must answer these serious allegations and hold those responsible to account if there has been political bias in the dissemination of trending news," Thune said in a statement,
Talking Points Memo reports.
"Any attempt by a neutral and inclusive social media platform to censor or manipulate political discussion is an abuse of trust and inconsistent with the values of an open Internet."
A Facebook executive on Tuesday
denied there was any evidence to support the political bias allegations.
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