This week had more “rigging” than a clipper ship. 

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

The big story was the multiday face-off between lawmakers and internet giants including Facebook for, as one senator put it, profiting from propaganda. Mike Allen of Axios describes how two senators built a Facebook page for a made-up political group and then, as a test, paid to target journalists and Capitol Hill staffers with ads for it. One of them, at least, was surprised at how anonymous they could remain, Mr. Allen reports. “Lawmakers are still learning the basics,” 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 André Staltz writes, power has become remarkably concentrated over the past few years.

No one’s sure how to classify these big guys, and that matters when it comes to policing them. It’s not just about whether Facebook is a publisher. It may also matter, for example, that TripAdvisor is not regulated as a “transactional firm.” A Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation cites charges by travelers that they had posted warnings of assaults and involuntary druggings at resorts – but had seen those posts deleted. (TripAdvisor prohibits “inappropriate” or “off-topic” 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.