After Facebook was alleged of being biased against conservative views, the social media website announced on Monday that it will no longer rely on other news outlets as much as it did before in determining what is featured on its Trending Topics section.
Earlier this month, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune alleged that Facebook was intentionally suppressing articles from conservative sources.
In a letter (PDF) he sent to the popular social network site, Thune demanded that the company should explain how it determines the news articles that go into its "trending" list and to provide records on articles that it had added or excluded from the section.
Despite finding no evidence of any bias in its selection of topics, Facebook said that it will no longer continue its algorithmic analysis of news websites to determine which specific stories will be featured in the Trending Topics section.
The company will no longer rely on the 1,000 journalism outlets that help Facebook curators find out which topics are potentially newsworthy, as well as well-known news websites such as The Guardian, The Washington Post and The New York Times.
The changes to Facebook's news curation policy indicates how difficult it is for the social media site to take on editorial work, much like those of traditional news organizations, as part of the company's strategy for growth.
With Facebook becoming increasingly like a traditional media organization, more people are paying attention to how it chooses the types of news it disseminates to its users.
Aside from discontinuing its use of scraping algorithms, the company added that it would develop better procedures including those for monitoring the activity of its Trending Topics team.
Sen. Thune appears to be pleased with Facebook's decision to change its curation policy, stating that the company's willingness to admit that there was a possible bias in its curation adds credibility to the results of its investigation.
Following its internal investigations, Facebook said they weren't able to find any form of "systematic political bias" in how it managed its Trending Topics section and that both conservatives and liberals seem to equally approve the kind of topics featured there.
