Phone companies don't set up incentive structures that encourage a certain kind of content. Facebook has an "algorithmic" feed, likes, and "engagement" metrics that rewards certain behaviours and punish others. They are rightly being pilloried when these incentives encourage and promote constant outrage, conspiracies, and completely fact-free fear mongering.

If you mean that Facebook should be regulated as a utility, by all means make that argument - I think you’ll find broad support.

As it is, Facebook is constantly making editorial decisions in terms of what content is shown (which posts, in what order, with what presentation). Their own research had found that some of those editorial decisions have externalities in the form of increasing social conflict. Rather than take steps to address it, or even research this question more, they wiped their hands of it.

My guess is it's because phone or cable companies don't apply comparable measures, at least not that I know of. Targeted content for example.

Note the voting on your questions as opposed to the engagement of the discourse you've started. There are a percentage of users who don't like you asking these questions and a percentage of them who want to understand what these questions mean.

Phone and cable companies do not create polarization because they carry ALL data (usually). Services like Facebook, Twitter and HN all provide the ability to modify the content, in place. This is done with automation (code) and we can expect that automation to become more aware moving forward (AI).

This ability to modify content in place by the companies produces revenue at the same time it creates the ability for some types of divisiveness to form. Humans are divisive, under certain conditions, and there isn't much that can be done about it other than education about how to stop being divisive.

Education becomes impossible when the entities controlling the channels do so in a way that prevent users changing what type of content they see (such as education about how to avoid divisiveness), maybe due to the fact it kills revenue.

Worse, the more choice you give users (free, decentralized internet anyone?), the more some users will choose to introduce behaviors that give way to divisiveness in a given group. Trolls using imagery to build propaganda filled stories.

Trolls have taken over the Republican party, if nobody has figured this out by now. Note how they use strong imagery to glue their never-ending stories together.

It's a no-win situation. The best thing to do is simply walk away from it or maybe build a personal search engine AI crawler thing that works for just you and only you.

"Here's your content, Boss." "Thanks, Sidekick!"

Phone and cable companies are extensively regulated.

Agreed, if you look at cable news channels these day its all about division and fighting.