Reports Reveal Efforts of Facebook Employees to Subdue Conservative News Outlets

A critical report by the Wall Street Journal revealed that employees of the tech giant, Facebook have made unapproved suppression on right-wing outlets.

Facebook Employees Unsupervised Move

According to the New York Post, despite objections from Facebook managers who tried to avoid political blowback, the tech giant's employees have pushed to deplatform outlets such as Breibart.

The internal debates were captured in message-board conversations reviewed by the Wall Street Journal.

The discovery fueled new concerns that the platform treated several news outlets differently based on their political slant.

In the report's spotlight was Breitbart, which employees have targeted to remove from the News Tab function, especially during the protests after the death of George Floyd in the hands of Minneapolis police last year.

The report showed that when a staffer asked about removing Breitbart, a senior researcher responded that they have seen drops in trust in CNN 2 years ago and he mentioned if they would take the same approach for them, too.

Meanwhile, since the start of 2020, Facebook started to keep track of "strikes" for content deemed false by third-party fact-checkers. The tech giant imposed those repeat offenders could be suspended from posting. Based on the report, escalations came more frequently against conservative outlets.

Meanwhile, the report was the latest in a series of bombshell revelations from whistleblowers who claimed that the social media colossus craved profits over the needs of its users.

Another Whistleblower Against Facebook

After the revelation, company managers told their employees to brace themselves for more disclosures.

In a Saturday memo obtained by Axios, the vice president of global affairs for Facebook, Nick Clegg, said that the workers need to steel themselves for more bad headlines in the coming days, and he was worried about it.

Moreover, new scoops were expected to come out on Monday after a number of news outlets were given leaked material by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen.

Also, an embargo on the information​ collapsed Friday and a more devastating revelation could come out based on the company's internal workings. It could be released any time.

Furthermore, the story that broke the embargo on Friday involved a new whistleblower who told the Securities and Exchange Commission that the tech giant Facebook routinely dismissed concerns regarding hate speech and the spread of misinformation over fears that it would hinder the growth of their company.

The whistleblower, who testified under oath but his name has not been released, shared to the SEC in 2017 that Facebook executives discouraged attempts to fight misinformation and hate speech during the Trump administration because it would hold back the company's growth. The whistleblower also leaked out that the execs were afraid of the consequences from the president and his allies.

Tucker Bounds, a Facebook communications official, confirmed that the whistleblower, like Haugen, was a member of the social network's "integrity team." Bounds dismissed hate speech as a "flash in the pan" and said even though "some legislators will get pissy," the company would still print money in the basement.

A person who worked at Facebook at the time told The Post that the comment of Bounds sounded accurate.

Despite the new developments on the issue, Clegg in his memo encouraged employees to stay positive​ amid the revelation.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Jess Smith

WATCH: Facebook employees tried to suppress conservative news outlets, report shows, World News Today