It's impossible to tell from TFA or the abstract what precisely is meant by "information gerrymandering". One imagines some sort of graph theory or "six degrees

It's impossible to tell from TFA or the abstract what precisely is meant by "information gerrymandering". One imagines some sort of graph theory or "six degrees of Bacon" argument. "This node should only influence some number of other nodes, but in fact if you count second- and third-order connections it influences some higher number of other nodes!" Presumably they've picked out some particular criteria for differentiating justifiable influence from unjustifiable influence. The criteria are probably fine; since we don't know them the point is moot. Even if one accepts all of that, one still can't follow TFA to its conclusion of "...voters really can be manipulated in the digital age. Legislators and regulators must take note." We've been working on this "giant graph of nodes influencing each other" problem for decades now. That's just SEO. That's the basic thing that Google does. Any network has these properties, even the "snail" networks of pamphlets and broadsheets that kept our founding fathers informed. It was completely appropriate for late-18C pamphleteers to publish and distribute according to the dictates of their own best judgment. It's completely appropriate for today's social network operators to do the same. It's completely appropriate for users to do just exactly as they please, whatever the TOS say. What is not appropriate is for "legislators and regulators" to imagine they have a damned thing to say about this process. 1A is not ambiguous on this question. The government don't get to forbid the public from hearing Trump describing to Billy Bush his techniques of seduction. They don't get to forbid the public from hearing Clinton tell bankers they should be able to regulate themselves. [0] It's a conversation because they don't get to decide everything that gets said. For three years now, a segment of the "intelligentsia" have wallowed in a mode of magical thinking about networks and bots that has left them completely uninterested in real things. If this research can help them break out of this rut, one welcomes it. However, that seems unlikely... [0] https://www.thedailybeast.com/leaked-podesta-emails-show-bernie-was-right https://www.thedailybeast.com/leaked-podesta-emails-show-ber...