This has been true for a long time - it was true for multiple Murdoch companies since the 80's. Hearst declared, in 1898 "You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war"[1]
edit: to be clear, I'm not condoning this reality, but it is not a new phenomenon.
Very specifically, if a site has applied editorial discretion like a publisher does, it is then liable for what is said. If it just reposts content provided by others, it has a safe harbor. By my lay reading, automated filtering intended to support a specific point of view would seem to be a grey area.
> Google and other social media sites claim to be neutral platforms. This distinction is important because certain protections given to neutral platforms don’t necessarily apply to publishers.
It is false. There is no such "distinction" in terms of protections applied to online platforms.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230
Scroll down to section C.
1. No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.
2. No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of—
2.a any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or
2.b any action taken to enable or make available to information content providers or others the technical means to restrict access to material described in paragraph (1).[1]
you should keep reading:
https://ilt.eff.org/Defamation__CDA_Cases.html#Exercise_of_E...