Facebook execs to meet with GOP leaders over concerns about anti-conservative bias

Facebook is sending some of its top executives to meet with Republican leaders following complaints about anti-conservative bias on social media, the company confirmed to The Hill on Friday.

The officials from Facebook’s public policy team will be meeting with House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), RNC Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel and Brad Parscale, President Trump’s 2020 campaign manager.

A McCarthy spokeswoman said that the meeting would focus on “continued issues with conservative censorship on their website.”

{mosads}The meeting was first reported by Axios.

Facebook will be represented by a group of former GOP officials: Kevin Martin, who served as Federal Communications Commission chairman during the George W. Bush administration; Joel Kaplan, Bush’s former deputy chief of staff; Greg Maurer, who was an aide to former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio); and former Republican digital strategist Katie Harbath.

Facebook and other social media companies have faced criticism from conservatives over accusations that the industry is biased against conservative speech. The meeting comes after Parscale and McDaniel sent a letter to Facebook and Twitter in May. And McCarthy has become an increasingly vocal critic of tech companies, even though he’s received thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Silicon Valley.

Parscale, the digital director on Trump’s 2016 campaign, has also been a critic of tech companies, though he’s credited Facebook with helping Trump win the White House.

Facebook has responded to the criticism by launching a review of conservative bias on the platform led by former GOP Sen. Jon Kyl (Ariz.).