By Selwyn Duke

A number of former Facebook employees have admitted they regularly censored conservative news, denying it placement in the site’s “Trending Topics” section regardless of its popularity. Moreover, company management actually ordered that relatively unpopular stories be listed as trending if it deemed them “important.”

One of social media’s selling points is that it’s a democratic arena in which “the people” determine what’s seen and heard. Yet the revelations by the ex-employees, provided to news organ Gizmodo.com, inform that this is a sham, an illusion. In reality, “Facebook’s news section operates like a traditional newsroom, reflecting the biases of its workers and the institutional imperatives of the corporation,” writes Gizmodo. This amounts to deception, as Facebook claims that its trending module lists topics based on popularity, not political correctness.

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