In the last few weeks, Facebook announced a change to their news algorithm. News outlets would be demoted in their feeds; instead, stories driving social interactions would be elevated. Meanwhile, they also announced a process for ranking news institutions by “credibility.”
All of this is likely in response to a concerted Democratic effort to pressure Facebook and Twitter into giving preferential treatment to Left-leaning outlets. We’ve already seen Google attempt to target conservative sites with false fact-checking claims. And Democrats won’t stop there.
Hence the latest effort from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) to push Facebook and Twitter into investigating the #ReleaseTheMemo social media campaign. That campaign centered around a classified memo from House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA), who apparently details serious flaws in the FISA warrant system that could have led to the targeting of the Trump campaign for politically partisan reasons. The campaign itself trended on social media over the past few days.
The letter from Feinstein and Schiff stated:
If these reports are accurate, we are witnessing an ongoing attack by the Russian government through Kremlin-linked social media actors directly acting to intervene and influence our democratic process. This should be disconcerting to all Americans, but especially your companies as, once again, it appears the vast majority of their efforts are concentrated on your platforms. This latest example of Russian interference is in keeping with Moscow’s concerted, covert, and continuing campaign to manipulate American public opinion and erode trust in our law enforcement and intelligence institutions.
The evidence that Russian bots somehow deeply affected the 2016 election is a cherished myth Democrats refuse to surrender — they believe that Hillary Clinton lost because social media somehow twisted the process. There’s little evidentiary support for that proposition, but Democrats don’t seem to care: it’s all an opportunity to bash the hell out of social media companies and cudgel them into downgrading opposing sources of information.
The same holds true here. According to The Daily Beast:
The online groundswell urging the release of House Republicans’ attacks on the Federal Bureau of Investigation appears thus far to be organically American—not Russian propaganda, a source familiar with Twitter’s internal analysis told The Daily Beast.
That won’t stop Democrats from targeting Facebook and Twitter, and pressuring them to do more to stop hashtags that don’t help Democrats. Shame on those social media companies if they bow to the demands of governmental Democrats rather than protecting their readers.