Any democratic country depends on the quality of public discourse for the effectiveness of its political system, and for this reason many countries have special rules for newspapers and TV.
What's important here is that Facebook is not covered by those laws, simply because it did not exist when the laws were created. In my view it should be covered by those laws.
One defence Facebook might consider is to say that it simply reflects the preferences of its readers algorithmically. However, this article shows that is not the case, and that the company does exercise editorial judgement. Of course, the design of the algorithms is tacit editorialising anyway, so the whole point is moot to me.
While we are considering the fact that FB is a private company (actually a public company), some might be inclined to say that if users realise Facebook cannot be trusted, then they will leave the site causing its revenues to decrease. Other more honest and transparent competitors will take its place. However, in practise there are many reasons to think this won't happen, which is why we have special laws for the press in the first place.
What's important here is that Facebook is not covered by those laws, simply because it did not exist when the laws were created. In my view it should be covered by those laws.
One defence Facebook might consider is to say that it simply reflects the preferences of its readers algorithmically. However, this article shows that is not the case, and that the company does exercise editorial judgement. Of course, the design of the algorithms is tacit editorialising anyway, so the whole point is moot to me.
While we are considering the fact that FB is a private company (actually a public company), some might be inclined to say that if users realise Facebook cannot be trusted, then they will leave the site causing its revenues to decrease. Other more honest and transparent competitors will take its place. However, in practise there are many reasons to think this won't happen, which is why we have special laws for the press in the first place.