Facebook believes it has fumbled the treatment of pro-President Donald Trump personalities Diamond and Silk’s page for an extended period of time and is concerned with how conservatives view the platform, a source familiar with the matter told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
The company also disputes the duo’s characterization that Facebook made no attempts to contact them, with the source saying their claims are patently “not true” and noting a public response Facebook left on their page that claimed multiple emails were sent.
WATCH Tomi Call Out Zuck:
“Hi Diamond and Silk, We’re so sorry about the message you received last week — what we sent wasn’t correct and isn’t reflective of how we communicate with our community. As we expressed in the emails we sent yesterday, we’d love the chance to discuss this and answer any questions you may have. You mentioned you may not have seen the emails so wanted to reach out here as well. A member of our team, Neil, sent the emails. We’d appreciate the chance to connect when you are available. Thank you,” the comment reads.
[Facebook Screenshot | Facebook responds to Diamond and Silk.]
On Tuesday, Diamond and Silk appeared on a radio show, “Mornings on the Mall,” where they alleged Facebook did not reach out to them after their page was labeled “unsafe for the community.”
“We have not heard from Facebook; they have not communicated with us. We haven’t talked to them by phone. We haven’t heard from Facebook,” one of them said.
Diamond and Silk received an April 5 notice from Facebook that called their page “unsafe for the community” and the “decision is final and it is not appeal-able in anyway,” which ended up being a mistake and not reflective of the site’s true policies, the source said.
Despite the admission of error, Facebook believes it is “working tirelessly” to accommodate conservatives, the source told TheDCNF.
In response to Diamond and Silk’s allegations Facebook was decreasing the visibility of their content, the company noted it made a number of changes in September 2017 about how its News Feed works. The feed now prioritizies posts from friends instead of public pages.
The company also admitted page admins would not have known about these new guidelines because the information was not properly communicated. Going forward, Facebook will work with admins so they will know the best way to monetize their content.
A relatively new policy, implemented in 2016, reduces the visibility of posts from sources that regularly contain so-called “clickbait” headlines, which could have contributed to Diamond and Silk’s impression they were being singled out for their conservative politics.
After this controversy, Facebook will continue making a concerted effort to ensure conservatives feel welcome on the platform, according to the source.
While the Diamond and Silk saga may seem silly to those unfamiliar, the social media’s treatment of right-wing accounts was brought up repeatedly during CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s Congressional hearing.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz asked Zuckerberg about the controversy and the censoring of conservative pages more generally.
While admitting Silicon Valley is “an extremely left-leaning place,” Zuckerberg “is making sure we don’t have any bias in the work we do, and I think it is a fair concern that people would wonder about,” the Facebook CEO said.
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