WMAL Interview - CPAC's MATT SCHLAPP 05.24.16

INTERVIEW – MATT SCHLAPP – Chairman of American Conservative Union, the organization that hosts the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) every year

Facebook admits rogue employees may have shown bias against conservatives. Social media giant denies ‘systematic’ discrimination. (Washington Times) — In one instance Facebook rejected a story this year about the opening of the annual Conservative Political Action Conference — the largest gathering of right-wing activists in the country. Facebook says that was likely because there were already enough stories about the Republican presidential primary. But the company said since it allowed CPAC posts in 2015, and covered other parts of the 2016 conference, there wasn’t any discrimination. “Our investigation has revealed no evidence of systematic political bias in the selection or prominence of stories included in the Trending Topics feature. In fact, our analysis indicated that the rates of approval of conservative and liberal topics are virtually identical in Trending Topics,” Colin Stretch, the company’s general counsel, said in an extensive reply to Sen. John Thune, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, who is probing the allegations of bias. Former Facebook employees told Gizmodo earlier this month that they detected bias in the way news was “curated” by the site, with stories on top GOP figures, conservative commentators and right-wing causes getting short shrift.

ACU Chairman Matt Schlapp’s Reaction to the Results of Facebook’s Investigation Into Suppression of Content. WASHINGTON DC – ACU has been vindicated. This issue is still unresolved even after these admissions of wrongdoing by Facebook. We will continue to press this matter until we are satisfied that conservatives will be fairly treated. Facebook has admitted to harming CPAC, but they have not called us to apologize, and they have failed to explain what they did. This two-week long investigation (it’s amazing how fast an internal investigation can be conducted) seems to scratch the surface. Sen. Thune has done the right thing to press them and we urge Congress to vigorously scrutinize Facebook to prevent deceptive practices and false advertising in the future.