A Facebook investigation into its Trending Topics feature found no evidence of systematic political bias in the editorial process that determines which stories are promoted in its most-popular section,  reports CNET.

The CNET post, in part, added:

“In a letter (PDF) sent to Sen. John Thune (R-SD), the company said it found no evidence to support allegations made earlier this month that the social-networking giant deliberately suppressed news stories published by conservative news outlets. The letter went on to say that Facebook found that conservative and liberal topics were approved as trending topics at “virtually identical” rates.

“”We were also unable to substantiate any of the specific allegations of politically-motivated suppression of particular subjects or sources,” Facebook said in a post regarding its letter to Thune, who as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee had demanded an explanation from Facebook. “In fact, we confirmed that most of the subjects mentioned in media reports were included as trending topics on multiple occasions.”

“The findings emerge less than a week after Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg met with more than a dozen conservative leaders concerned about a report the role political bias plays in how stories are promoted on the social network. Zuckerberg called the meeting after tech site Gizmodo reported that Facebook employed “news curators” to suppress content from conservative sites.”