The real issue with FB and Twitter is the news feed algorithms, not the paid content. The inciting incident that gave rise to the concerns is simply that Trump

The real issue with FB and Twitter is the news feed algorithms, not the paid content. The inciting incident that gave rise to the concerns is simply that Trump won. Only a tiny fraction of the reach that Trump obtained via FB and Twitter was paid advertising. Most of the reach that benefitted Trump was simply the algorithm amplifying journalistic stories (mostly negative) that allowed Trump to dog whistle effectively. Imagine someone with 800 FB friends who shares an article from, the NYT or Huffpost that is harshly critical of Trump for saying something that comes across as racist. There are three broad categories to characterize those who see the shared content: a) people who are in the target audience of the article, who dislike Trump, who expected him to be racist, and who consider the article further proof (and vindication) of their view b) people who read the coverage and find it unfair to Trump, even if they agree with the gist. c) people who actually agree with the racist view Trump is alleged to have expressed. If the user sharing the article has 800 friends, most are probably in group a, but Trump benefits from any friends the user has who are in groups b or c. To them, the article reinforces their support for Trump or their view that the coverage was unfair. For those who view the coverage as unfair, a steady stream of similarly unfair-seeming articles makes them effectively immune to negative press about Trump. In 2019 many of Trump's supporters are in this group. When Trump describes "fake news" he is appealing to this group. The reach that benefits Trump may be 100 of the 800 friends, and it cost Trump's campaign nothing. Trump triggered these kinds of signaling cascades many, many times during the 2016 campaign. Sadly, the biggest problem is reporting that is not journalism but in-group focused entertainment writing. Many of the "most shared" articles from major papers are not thorough, in-depth stories, they are light on journalism and heavy on in-group signaling. It is this kind of article that helps Trump the most, for the aforementioned reasons. These are also the kinds of articles that get the most clicks and generate the most revenue for the paper.