Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has defended the social network's algorithm following the election of Donald Trump.

Accusations were made yesterday suggesting the website allowed fake news' to circulate in the lead up to the election.

“Personally I think the idea that fake news on Facebook—of which it’s a very small amount of the content—influenced the election in any way is a pretty crazy idea,” Zuckerberg said at conference in California.

He added that, on the contrary, the site exposed its users to various views across the political spectrum according to research conducted by Facebook.

However, Mr Zuckerberg added, Facebook has also found that people are less inclined to click on links or otherwise check out shared stories that do not line up with their views.

"We just tune out," Mr Zuckerberg said of the pattern. "I don't know what to do about that."

Social media - particularly Facebook and Twitter - played a significant role in how people received their news during the candidates' campaigns.

Facebook's News Feed feature has evolved from early days of being about sharing personal updates with friends or family to becoming a platform for important news.

“Right now the problem isn’t that diverse information isn’t there … but we haven’t gotten people to engage with it in higher proportions,” he said.

Zuckerberg added that Facebook was still weighing “newsworthiness as a higher part of the community guidelines.”

The comment comes after President-elect Donald Trump’s posts calling for a Muslim ban technically violated the site’s rules for hate speech, according to The Wall Street Journal reported.