perhaps it should be compared to a fixed wrestling match, where volumes of “cheap speech,” as the scholar Tim Wu calls it, are deployed by one side to “attack, harass, and silence” the other.49 The match is rigged because the promoters—Internet companies—favor the loudest, dirtiest fighters. False, hateful, and sensational speech holds users’ attention, which in turn drives ad revenues. Algorithms amplify such messages, not because of their value to truth or public discourse, but because they generate money.
