Cathy Young

[Commentary] Talk to people on the anti-“Mainstream media” side of the culture war, Donald Trump supporters or not, and they will tell you that The New York Times or The Washington Post are no more reliable than Breitbart or the conspiracy-theory site Infowars.

Comparing the mainstream media in the United States to the state-controlled Russian media that routinely traffic in outright hoaxes and blatant propaganda is factually wrong and unfair. But the media must do a better job and invite a greater diversity of viewpoints. Otherwise, its ability to counter fake news will continue to erode, with dangerous consequences for us all.

[Cathy Young is a contributing editor for Reason magazine and a columnist for Newsday.]

[Commentary] The recent news that Facebook staffers had sought to delete Donald Trump’s posts calling for restrictions on Muslim immigration as violating the company’s hate speech policies has revived the ongoing controversy about ideological neutrality in the social networks. This time at least, the Facebook employees were overruled by CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the grounds that this would amount to political censorship, but the issue raises the question: Is there a problem of anti-conservative bias in the social media? And if so, what’s the answer?

It should be noted that Trump is not a standard conservative — indeed, many conservatives say he’s not a conservative at all — and plenty of people on the right have denounced his proposed Muslim ban. But this is far from the only instance in which major social media platforms have been accused of political censorship toward right-leaning content. Last May, allegations were made that Facebook had suppressed conservative views from its “trending topics;” while Facebook claimed that its internal investigation found no evidence of systematic suppression, the company also announced that it would modify the process of trending topic selection to minimize the potential for abuse. To stop the fragmentation, these companies’ leadership should make a good-faith effort to live up to their promise of political inclusiveness and free debate. The conversation on curbing harassment while protecting speech is important; but it must include a truly diverse base of advocates.

[Young is a contributing editor for Reason magazine and a columnist for Newsday.]