It’s All about the Algorithm 0
Anne Applebaum explains.
I don’t agree with her wholeheartedly, because she doesn’t differentiate between the actions of Facebook and those of Facebook posters, nor does she remark on the credulousness of the American Facebook user. Nevertheless, as regards how Facebook and other anti-social media platforms manipulate the material that Facebook users see when they log in, I submit that her piece is worth a read. Said manipulation may not be “publishing,” but at the very least it is some form of “polishing.”
A snippet:
At the same time, Facebook has declared itself free of responsibility: The company continues to argue that it is not legally liable for material that appears on its platform because it is not a “publisher,” even though it behaves in every other way like a publisher, including by collecting advertising revenue that used to go to publishers. The result is that anyone who seeks to spread false information on Facebook or any other social-media site is, in practice, no longer bound by laws on libel or false advertising that were explicitly designed to stop them.
