They had a "trending" feature which was mostly created by an algorithm but had some in-house editors to curate it. They would remove fake news and anything that seemed inappropriate. Conservatives complained that the editors were biased and would remove news stories that were of interest to conservatives. So Facebook fired the editors.

Shortly after, this happened: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/29/facebook-...

Which they're within their rights to do, as a company. They can distort your newsfeed any way they want, they don't have to be impartial or fair.

Which is why they shouldn't be trusted as if they were a neutral party providing a utility - they're demonstrably not. Even if they intended to be, the temptation to wield the power they have towards some financial or political end would inevitably be too great to resist.

They've also actively tried to manipulate the moods of their users via manipulation of newsfeed content. Informed consent is for the little people, I suppose. Just like net neutrality.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/everyt...

A news service, such as a newsfeed, has a duty to be impartial by virtue of naming itself news unless there is a real contract with the user stating alternative duties.

Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. Facebook radically alters its content for political and state power purposes.

Not only is this not against the law, it's either illegal or highly discouraged not to do this everywhere in the world.

..he typed on Hacker News, a newsfeed actively censored by YC against negative news about companies that they invest in.

If you're good, you can still get your information through.

> Wasn't Facebook caught scrubbing positive conservative news stories in the past? I could see secret deals between facebook and political parties regarding the consumers of their "free" internet.

Yes but it wasn't because of a secret deal (and would likely never be such). SF/SV just leans more liberal and its conservatives are generally libertarians. So, natural biases were likely the only cause and why pay for what you can get for free?

I think every Democrat would agree the GOP being killed off by the Libertarians would be a good thing simply because it narrows the scope to fighting over financial/economic issues and related civil rights issues. Rather than fighting over things like abortion and having the GOP quietly use building codes and other tricks to kill abortion clinics anyway.