Zuckerberg to meet with conservatives on bias claims

Washington: Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg has invited conservative leaders to a meeting this week to discuss allegations that the social network has been suppressing some political views.

A Facebook spokeswoman told AFP Zuckerberg would meet with about a dozen conservatives including political commentator Glenn Beck and talk show host Dana Perino.

The meeting comes in the wake of a report by tech news website Gizmodo alleging that articles from politically conservative outlets were deliberately omitted from Facebook's "trending" news stories.

Facebook has denied the allegations and Zuckerberg has promised to investigate the matter.

"If we find anything against our principles, you have my commitment that we will take additional steps to address it," Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post last week.

Beck said in a post on Facebook that he had been contacted by Zuckerberg and asked to meet Wednesday at Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park, California.

"Mark wanted to meet with 8 or ten of us to explain what happened and assure us that it won't happen again," Beck wrote.

"The question that needs to be answered Wednesday is: Will Mark see this as an opportunity to free all points of view but at the same time unify America and the world."

Others invited include Zac Moffatt, a political consultant who worked for former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney; Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute; and Barry Bennett, an advisor to presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

The debate comes with Facebook and other social networks playing a growing role in how people get their news and amid concern over whether this information is promoted or filtered by online services and applications.