"alarming local officeholders and opponents who are warning about pro-Trump, 'ends justify the means' candidates taking big roles in running the vote."
Hard not to read article on election official candidates who promote false fraud claims politico.com/news/2021/05/2… in especially ominous terms in light of @drvolts thread over the weekend (though @ZachMontellaro is careful to note constraints on powers of secretaries of state)
Absent fraud, the more prosaic fear is that the chief election official in key states could be campaigning against the legitimacy of the results if their side loses, further undercutting the legitimacy of our democratic system.
This is not an evidence-based statement. Research has repeatedly found that claims of widespread echo chambers are overstated kf-site-production.s3.amazonaws.com/media_elements…. The role of algorithms in promoting exposure to extreme or harmful content is also often overstated adl.org/media/15868/do….
There are many reasons for very serious concern about social media platforms but evidence-free assertions and moral panics about algorithms are not the way forward.
TLDR: Treating algorithms as the cause of and solution to all of life's problems is a bad approach to social media policy.