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Gizmodo pulls back the curtain on the supposedly neutral, computer-based algorithm of "trending" news on Facebook, which turns out to be none of those things. The site interviewed several former contract workers for Facebook who were curators, chosen to pick which stories Facebook features as trending news who said they were told to increase the profile of certain stories, and to ignore others that were popular among users. "In other words, Facebook’s news section operates like a traditional newsroom, reflecting the biases of its workers and the institutional imperatives of the corporation. Imposing human editorial values onto the lists of topics an algorithm spits out is by no means a bad thing—but it is in stark contrast to the company’s claims that the trending module simply lists 'topics that have recently become popular on Facebook,'" Gizmodo wrote. The story's allegations that conservative news was played down by Facebook seems less impressive. One anonymous former Facebook news curator says, “I’d come on shift and I’d discover that CPAC or Mitt Romney or Glenn Beck or popular conservative topics wouldn’t be trending because either the curator didn’t recognize the news topic or it was like they had a bias against Ted Cruz.” That sounds like a problem in any newsroom, not particular to Facebook. Another quote says, “Every once in awhile a Red State or conservative news source would have a story. But we would have to go and find the same story from a more neutral outlet that wasn’t as biased." Did they follow the same procedure with first-sources from the far left? Probably the curators searched for more sources, and sources they knew and could trust, just like regular journalists. Facebook's news curation may have a bias against conservative news, and tends towards mainstream sources and stories, just like many other news outlets, and that part of the story seems very accurate. See the full story in Gizmodo.