Facebook employees will now be trained to confront their own political biases, after the social network faced accusations that employees prevented conservative news items from trending on the site.
“We think a lot about diversity at Facebook,” Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer, announced Wednesday, The Hill reports. “And we have a managing-bias class that all of our leaders and a lot of our employees have taken that I was part of helping to create, and we’ve focused on racial bias, age bias, gender bias, national bias, and we’re going to add in a scenario now on political bias.”
The addition of political bias training comes after the site faced criticism that the editors of Facebook’s trending topics feature downplayed news sources and stories popular among conservatives. A Facebook spokesman told The Hill that the training is mandatory for all employees.
Many Americans get their news from Facebook, which maintains its neutrality.
“We don’t have a point of view, we’re not trying to make you have a point of view,” Sandberg said.
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