By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 1-21-21
Reps. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.) have written the heads of Facebook, Twitter, and Google asking them to face up to and fix the “fundamental design features of their social networks that facilitate the spread of extreme, radicalizing content to their users,” the sort of radicalizing that resulted in the attack on the Capitol, they pointed out.
They said that maximizing user engagement as the basis for algorithmic promotion of news content provided a digital echo chamber for platforms for radicalization – platforms “designed, built, and maintained” by the companies.
They said the companies were at least partially responsible for “undermining our shared sense of objective reality, for intensifying fringe political beliefs, [and] for facilitating connections between extremists, leading some of them to commit real-world, physical violence.” » Read More