Title: Social media use in politics - Wikipedia
Headings: Social media use in politics
Social media use in politics
Contents
Background
Participatory role
As a news source
Attention economy
As a public utility
Government regulation
Effect on democracy
Democratization
The Arab Spring
Disinformation
Advertisement
Grassroots campaigns
Election interference
Election results
Impact on elections
Role in conflict
Non-state actors and militant groups
Weaponization by state actors
See also
References

Content: While informing younger generations of political news is important, there are many biases within the realms of social media. In May 2016, former Facebook Trending News curator Benjamin Fearnow revealed his job was to "massage the algorithm," but dismissed any "intentional, outright bias" by either human or automated efforts within the company. Fearnow was fired by Facebook after being caught leaking several internal company debates about Black Lives Matter and presidential candidate Donald Trump. As a public utility
See also: Social media as a public utility
A key debate centers on whether or not social media is a public good based on the premises of non-rival and non-excludable consumption. Social media can be considered an impure public good as it can be excludable given the rights of platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to remove content, disable accounts, and filter information based on algorithms and community standards. Arguments for platforms such as Google in being treated as a public utility and public service provider include statements from Benjamin Barber in The Nation
"For new media to be potential equalizers, they must be treated as public utilities, recognizing that spectrum abundance (the excuse for privatization) does not prevent monopoly ownership of hardware and software platforms and hence cannot guarantee equal civic, educational, and cultural access to citizens." Similarly, Zeynep Tufeckig argues online services are natural monopolies that underwrite the "corporatization of social commons" and the "privatization of our publics." One argument that displays the nature of social media as an impure public good is the fact that the control over content remains in the hands of a few large media networks, Google and Facebook, for example. Google and Facebook have the power to shape the environment under personal and commercial goals that promotes profitability, as opposed to promoting citizen voice and public deliberation.