No, GOP Senate: Do not investigate Facebook's anti-conservative bias

Rob told you last week, as did many others, about the reports that Facebook employees regularly spike news stories that are favorable toward conservatives or have a conservative point of view. No one who spends time on Facebook regularly should have been surprised by this. It's very obvious that their "trending stories" section is put together by people who lean to the left. Everyone here believes that, while Facebook should not pretend to be unbiased when they clearly are not, it is Facebook's prerogative to run its business any way it sees fit.

Even so, Mark Zuckerberg would do himself no favors to systematically alienate half the political spectrum in the service of his own ideological bias, and he seems to recognize that with his decision to meet this past weekend with 12 "conservative thought leaders" (whatever that means). A report about the meeting sounds innocuous enough, except for the part in bold at the end of the third paragraph below:

Some 12 "conservative thought leaders" will join the meeting with Zuckerberg on Wednesday, a Facebook spokesman said. Among the invitees are media personality Glenn Beck, Fox News Channel's "The Five" co-host Dana Perino and Zac Moffatt, co-founder of Targeted Victory, a technology company that aims to bring transparency to media buying. Facebook came under fire last week when an unnamed former employee told technology news website Gizmodo that workers often omitted conservative political stories from the company's "trending" list of topics. Zuckerberg said Facebook has "found no evidence that this report is true," but would continue to investigate. A U.S. Senate committee has also opened an inquiry into Facebook's practices. Beck, a former Fox News host, took to Facebook early Sunday to say he is going to the meeting in Menlo Park, California, and "it would be interesting to look him (Zuckerberg) in the eye as he explains." "While they are a private business and I support their right to run it any way they desire without government interference," Beck said, "it would be wonderful if a tool like face book [sic] INDEPENDENTLY CHOSE to hold up Freedom of speech and freedom of association as a corporate principle."

Facebook's actions might be unfair, but the company is within its rights to operate that way if it wants to

Glenn Beck is right about that, of course. Not only would it be "wonderful" for Facebook to do that, but in my humble opinion it would be the wisest business decision. But if Facebook chooses not to, the market can respond accordingly. What does not need to happen is any sort of congressional inquiry. Facebook's actions might be unfair, but the company is within its rights to operate that way if it wants to. Any media source is. Everything that every happens that's wrong does not require congressional action, whether it's our side that's bothered by it or the other side. If congressional Republicans think the federal government has to swoop in to deal with every injustice that ever occurs, then I'm not sure what makes them different from Democrats. People can handle their own problems, and the problem of one media source being biased is something we can all find solutions for in our personal lives. If users want to put pressure on Facebook to change the way it operates, then they should. We'll see how they respond. There's nothing Congress needs to do here. Back off, Senate Republicans. We've got this.

Dan Calabrese——Bio and Archives

Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain

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