The Atlantic

The Case for a Taxpayer-Supported Version of Facebook

“A public social media platform would have the civic mission of providing us a diverse and global view of the world.”
Source: Sesame Workshop

There’s a wealth of tech-centric explanations for a 2016 presidential election that defied expectations and has many Americans scared about our civic future. Fake news. Cambridge Analytica. Filter bubbles. Russian hacking. WikiLeaks. Propaganda bots.

It’s almost as if people are loath to admit that we live in a deeply divided nation (remember , anyone?) where Americans of all political stripes have lost much of their trust in government. Fixing Facebook’s algorithms to filter out fake news seems easier than fixing

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