Media Matters Flying at Facebook with Bias Charge

Facebook has been hammered by the right over alleged bias against conservative speech, and is now being hammered from the left for the opposite bias.

Media Matters for America said it plans to fly a small plane over Facebook's Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters Tuesday trailing a banner that said "Facebook Hearts Right Wing Lies."

Related: Trump Seeks Evidence of Social Media Censorship

The charge stems from Facebook's decision to no longer fact check political ads on its platform, a response to the right's charge social media platforms were censoring them, notably leveled by Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), among others.

“In the past few weeks alone, Facebook has changed its ad policy to allow baldfaced lies in political ads," said Media Matters Angelo Carusone. "In the last few months, Facebook has come under fire for capitulating to false right-wing claims of bias and adopting policies that allow politicians to deliberately spread lies and misinformation on its platform."

Facebook conducted a bias audit of its platform last summer, concluding that there was still work to be done, but still taking hits from both sides over that effort. 

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.