> They are not regulated

They are. It is called "The Communications Act of 1934" in the United States. They are completely regulated by the FCC in US. They are regulated differently in different countries. In US, as an example, they have rules on political advertising. They have "equal time" rules where every political candidate "must" be given equal time and opportunity to air their viewpoints. No such regulations exist for social media companies.

They can be held liable for fake news or slander. Social media platforms cannot. Only the content posted in the editorial is considered personal opinion and not the position of the News Organization. That is the only page/section in the newspaper/news that does not expose the News Organization to liability/slander. That is why you have a separate "Editorial Section" in a newspaper where the editor can give his/her opinions without exposing the newspaper to liability. But of late, the news agencies have started using other pages for giving their opinions too (from harmless clickbait to downright slander) which is again a very risky choice to make. This exposes them to liability/slander. This is why regulation is so important. To ensure what is legally allowed and not allowed. News agencies are bound by such regulations. Social media organizations are not.

If news agencies publishes a hit piece on me that is obviously false, I can sue the news organization for slander. The news organization cannot claim that it believed the news reporter/agent who passed on wrong information about me and get away with it. The ultimate publisher is the news agency. Period. That is why the organization can be sued.

But if a user posts a hit piece on me in a social media platform I cannot sue the platform for allowing the user to post slanderous material. Because the platform shields itself from liability by taking advantage of the provisions of Section 230. This is because it calls itself a "platform" and not a "publisher". This is fine by me as long as it remains a platform. But once it starts censoring opinions (like Twitter/Facebook deleting Trump's tweet) then it no longer is a platform. It is now behaving as a publisher. Then why should it be protected by Section 230?

> because that exposes them to civil liability

Exactly. They are regulated. Even if a news agent publishes a fake story, the organization is responsible for it. They cannot carry it forward without verification because if they do, they end up becoming liable. Not the news agent. That is the whole point. The recent case that comes to mind is when Nick Sandmann was falsely accused of being racist against a Native American by all left-leaning media organizations (CNN, Washington Post etc). When the fact were completely different (if you watch the video in its entirety). He sued these media organizations and won. They had to settle the 250 million $ lawsuit. Can he sue Facebook/Twitter which carried this story more than any of the media organizations did? Nope. That is the reason why I say that social media organizations enjoys powers that neither the US Government nor the Media enjoys.

> There's no obligation to show the President's content there either. They can choose not to show right-leaning or left-leaning content

Yes that is right. But when they do show the President, then they have to let him have his say. They cannot either censor him or change what he meant. If they do that then they open themselves up to defamation/liability depending on what they actually did. Social media companies do not have any such issues as they are unregulated.

You can read more about Media Regulation in the United States here: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/americangovernment/chapter...