海角大神

This week had more 鈥渞igging鈥� than a clipper ship.聽

That was true even before Democratic operative Donna Brazile unloaded on her party in a in Politico for, she says, tilting the table against Bernie Sanders.

The big story was the multiday face-off聽between lawmakers and internet giants including Facebook for, as one senator put it, . Mike Allen of Axios describes how two senators for a made-up political group and then, as a test, paid to target journalists and Capitol Hill staffers with ads for it.聽One of them, at least, was surprised at how anonymous they could remain, Mr. Allen reports. 鈥淟awmakers are still learning the basics,鈥� he writes.

The early web was sold as the province of little guys, rebels with cool names filling arcane niches. Down with gatekeepers; power to the people. But as blogger and web developer Andr茅 Staltz writes, power has become over the past few years.

No one鈥檚 sure how to classify these big guys, and that matters when it comes to policing them. It鈥檚 not just about whether Facebook is a publisher. It may also matter, for example, that TripAdvisor is not regulated as a 鈥渢ransactional firm.鈥澛燗 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation cites聽 that they had posted warnings of assaults and involuntary druggings at resorts 鈥� but had seen those posts deleted. (TripAdvisor prohibits 鈥渋nappropriate鈥� or 鈥渙ff-topic鈥� posts. It has restored some of the warnings it took down.)

People want the power back.

Now to our five stories for your Friday, chosen to highlight security, inclusion, and fairness in action.