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I think the complaint is that when conservative ideas "organically" trended, meaning were being actively discussed/traded/etc by many people, curators would sub
by sbuttgereit 10y ago
I think the complaint is that when conservative ideas "organically" trended, meaning were being actively discussed/traded/etc by many people, curators would substitute their favored stories as "trending", despite the fact they weren't or weren't to the same degree. The Senate letter suggests that by suppressing actually trending conservative news in favor of progressive news that was not trending and then calling it "trending" that something akin to false advertising fraud is in play.
In one sense, assuming this happened and is true, the Senate has a point. Having said that, even if the Senate does have a point, this doesn't rise to the level of being worth pursuing. In fact, I think as a society we're all too ready to try to invoke legal remedies for relative minor transgressions, including for claims of false advertising. Yes, Facebook should be able to do what ever they want on their service; including being a little fast and loose with the truth and still get away without legal sanction so long as no one was hurt as a result.
If they lied about what was trending or not or, shall we say, carefully defined what it means "to trend", I know about it now, I suffered no direct physical or financial harm, and can make the case Facebook isn't to be trusted in such matters. I'm not a conservative, but I am nearly wholly opposed to political progressivism and the political left's agenda. I can tell you I had already figured Facebook manipulated (manually or algorithmically) their news feed and trending news box to meet their own interests be that political or economic. Nonetheless, I think the First Amendment concerns are greater than the concerns of possible puffery about what is "trending" or not and that government force, or the threat thereof, is not the answer.