I cannot find a way to distinguish them from a newspaper. They sell advertising, have a medium they fully control, decide what stories you see, and everything on their site must conform to their editorial point of view.
They are publishers, not a mere neutral channel.
Atleast with newspapers if you pay for advertisement you know it’s being seen.
If Social Media platforms can throttle back your political posts because they do not want Trump to be helped by them. How to big and small businesses really know that their paid ads on social media are not getting throttled back as well in order to help throttle back the Trump economy to help their preferred candidates on the left?
(The analytics cam always be manipulated)