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Facebook has "significant work" to do to address concerns from conservatives who believe the company is biased against them, according to a report.

Staff led by a former Republican senator carried out an investigation, with a number of right-wing figures including US President Donald Trump having accused the platform of bias.

The review was commissioned by Facebook, which said it took the concerns "seriously" and was willing to adjust its policies if they were found to be "limiting expression".

In the report, compiled from interviews with 133 conservative figures, former senator Jon Kyl said there was a perception that Facebook algorithms "suppress" views on the right and "prioritise" opposing content.

It said efforts to combat "false news" had seen fact-checkers used by Facebook "skew to the ideological left".

It also said changes last year to how news feeds are compiled - to favour content shared and commented on by friends and family - had "disproportionately decreased the reach of conservative news content".

There was also criticism for how the tech giant defines "hate speech", which the review said was "highly subjective", and an over-reliance on "left-leaning organisations" to identify groups where hate speech is used.

Other concerns raised by Mr Kyl and his team, from the law firm Covington and Burling, included the "unfair removal" of conservative content from the platform, including "language from the Bible".

It said most interviewees who took part believed most of the issues stemmed from Facebook being a "liberal organisation with liberal employees".

Facebook has previously rejected accusations of harbouring anti-conservative bias, with Mr Trump among those to hit out at the social media firm over the banning of several high-profile right-wing figures earlier this year.

Back in May, about the "censorship" of figures like conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and former Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos, whose accounts were removed from Facebook a few days before.

Responding to the report, Sir Nick Clegg - Facebook's vice president for global affairs and communications, reiterated that Facebook is not inherently biased against conservatives.

The former British deputy prime minister said: "As at any large company, there is a diversity of political opinions at Facebook and plenty of people who would not describe themselves as conservatives.

"But regardless of one's own political views, this is about whether we apply our own policies fairly to all sides, and whether those policies begin with an understanding of how core groups of users express their beliefs.

"While we err on the side of free speech, there are critical exceptions: we don't allow content that might encourage offline harm or is intended to intimidate, exclude or silence people. And we work to slow and reduce the spread of content like debunked hoaxes and clickbait by down ranking it in news feed."

Sir Nick said it was inevitable that Facebook would "make some bad calls" due to the "billions of posts" made on the platform, but insisted the company welcomes political expression.

He said Mr Kyl would return with another report later in the year.