The Republican National Committee slammed Facebook following a report that its “news curators” were suppressing conservative news, accusing the social network of “censorship” in a blog post late Monday.
The post encouraged supporters to add their names to a list of those who felt Facebook’s decisions, as reported by Gizmodo, were unacceptable.
“With 167 million US Facebook users reading stories highlighted in the trending section, Facebook has the power to greatly influence the presidential election,” the post read. “It is beyond disturbing to learn that this power is being used to silence view points and stories that don’t fit someone else’s agenda. Censorship in any form should give Americans who value their fundamental freedoms great pause.”
Facebook must answer for conservative censorship #MakeThisTrend https://t.co/G1cpg1j5Pa pic.twitter.com/4tUA0FZbDf
— Reince Priebus (@Reince) May 9, 2016
Facebook is a sponsor for July’s Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Politico reported. It’s unclear whether the allegations of conservative media suppression will have any effect on that partnership. The RNC did not immediately respond Tuesday morning to a request for comment from TPM.
Facebook said Monday that it was taking the allegations in the Gizmodo report seriously.
“We take allegations of bias very seriously,” the company said in a statement to BuzzFeed News. “Facebook is a platform for people and perspectives from across the political spectrum. Trending Topics shows you the popular topics and hashtags that are being talked about on Facebook. There are rigorous guidelines in place for the review team to ensure consistency and neutrality.”
