The newspaper and news channel can be held liable for what they publish. If social media companies want to editorialize the content that users are seeing then t

The newspaper and news channel can be held liable for what they publish. If social media companies want to editorialize the content that users are seeing then they are no longer a platform, and they should play by the same rules as the newspapers and news channels. They could always choose not to do that and allow users to post whatever they like, within the bounds of the law. Again, this only came up because Twitter is taking an active role in the election process. The election process is adversarial. There is already someone on Twitter who can hold a candidate accountable - their opponent. Twitter can just pin Joe Biden's reply and fact check below any Trump tweet and vice versa. Instead they have chosen to insert a platform specific feature to qualify what someone else is publishing. Their insertion is not accountable to anyone, and as such can be constituted as a canonical truth. If they apply their insertions selectively, then they are basically manipulating the audience. If this is allowed then you no longer have a democracy. The social media platform will just pick your winner.