‘Zero Interest’: Why Conservatives Won’t Meet With Facebook’s Zuckerberg

Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg reached out to prominent Republican groups to set up a meeting over reports of a conservative media bias within the popular social media platform, but the American Conservative Union (ACU) has refused the invitation.

In a statement issued on Tuesday morning, ACU chairman Matt Schlapp expressed his appreciation for the invite, as their organization and their annual conference, CPAC, were specifically named and targeted.  However, the statement continued that the ACU does not believe that the problem is merely a communication issue, and that the meeting appears to be a set up to “avoid having to answer for their actions by hosting conservative luminaries at their state-of-the-art headquarters.”

“Facebook has a history of agitating against conservatives and conservative policies, especially when it comes to ACU’s own conference, CPAC,” Schlapp wrote. He then listed six issues that he does not believe a meeting could possibly resolve:

1) Facebook staff has admitted to suppressing content about CPAC.

2) Facebook rejected ACU’s overtures for Facebook to play a meaningful role at CPAC.

3) The deck is stacked: CPAC content significantly underperforms on Facebook, compared to Twitter and other platforms.

4) The Facebook Trending News chief, Tom Stocky, is a maxed-out donor to Hillary Clinton.

5) Of the 1,000 political donations from Facebook employees, some 80% have gone to liberals.

6) Facebook holds liberal positions on important issues such as privacy, property, and religion.

Schlapp further expressed discontent that Facebook entices people to sign up to use their platform while making a potentially-fraudulent assertion that the company is neutral on news content.

“Facebook has harmed its credibility with conservatives,” the statement reads, “but if they want to mend the relationship, we’re happy to sit down with their experts about how they can better strike a balance between sterile algorithms choosing news content and when a human curator decides to put a finger on the scale. If Facebook wants the benefit of the doubt, they need to start with complete transparency on how decisions are made concerning its newsfeeds.” 

Conservative news outlet Breitbart also turned down an invitation from Facebook, stating that they have “zero interest in a Facebook photo-op,” unless Zuckerberg meets personally with their tech editor.

While the ACU has refused to meet, other leading conservatives have reportedly accepted the offer. Attendees to Wednesday’s meeting are said to include Glenn Beck, Donald Trump advisor Barry Bennett, Mitt Romney’s former digital director Zac Moffatt, S.E. Cupp of CNN, American Enterprise Institute president Arthur Brooks and Fox News’ Dana Perino. Right wing media representatives will be travelling to Facebook’s Menlo Park, California, headquarters, and will meet with Zuckerberg as well as Facebook’s head of global public policy, Joel Kaplan.

The meeting will take place place nine days after Gizmodo published a report asserting that Facebook’s news curators manipulate the platform’s trending topics section to limit articles favorable to conservative views, for political reasons.

Facebook initially denied the claim, but later admitted that the curators do have more freedom to pick and choose trending topics than they had previously alluded. 

“In the US, there are an equal number of conservatives and liberals using our platform, and conservatives are just as engaged—if not more so,” Kaplan, who is a self-described conservative wrote in a Facebook post. “Conservative groups are thriving on Facebook, with exceptionally high levels of engagement.”