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"If Facebook ignores this request they could receive a subpoena, so I suspect they will cooperate," said Stephen Strauss, a former journalist who is now an attorney at Bryan Cave specializing in First Amendment issues.

He was referring to a letter sent by Senator John Thune to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg seeking an explanation of how Trending stories are selected and whether any conservative stories were taken out of the list or liberal leaning stories were inserted.

Joe Larsen of Sedgwick Law agrees that it would be risky for Facebook to ignore the request.

"That's just not a good idea, even where... I can see no clear legal basis for Senator Thune's request," Larsen said. "I expect Facebook will provide quite a bit of information."

Related: Did Facebook suppress conservative news?

One piece of what Thune is seeking was revealed Thursday when The Guardian published Facebook's manual for people who manage the Trending topics feature. Facebook confirmed the veracity of the 20 page document, which reveals that there is a lot of human decision making in choosing the stories on top of what the company's algorithms suggest. The manual includes when stories can be "injected" into the Trending topics list.

The controversy began on Monday when Gizmodo published a report with anonymous allegations that former contractors had ignored Facebook's algorithms for its Trending topics section and that links to conservative news stories were "routinely" suppressed.

Thune demanded to know exactly how Facebook decides what news stories to publish and to see a list of all the stories that were previously not distributed or manually inserted into Trending topics.

As a platform that's used by over 222 million people in the United States, the company is able to influence the perceptions of a large chunk of the U.S. population, Thune said.

Facebook has denied that anyone improperly tinkered with the list or that they were instructed to do so. A company spokesman said, "We have received Sen. Thune's request for more information about how Trending Topics works, and look forward to addressing his questions."

Related: Facebook's 'trending topics' spark debate

According to Strauss, Thune's request was legitimate.

"I think that this situation is different than an inquiry into a news organization's content," he said. "In this case Facebook has a 'trending' feature, and Facebook affirmatively stated particular standards for this 'trending' feature, and now there is some question as to the veracity of those representations."

Mark Bailen, a media attorney at BakerHostetler, disagrees. He argues that Facebook has the same right to distribute the news "without interference from the government" as any company or individual.

"It's well established that the government has no role in dictating what is newsworthy," said Bailen. "The idea that the government is going back and looking into and investigating [Facebook's activities in distributing the news] conflicts with decades of jurisprudence under the First Amendment."

Floyd Abrams, a prominent First Amendment attorney, compares Thune's request to one issued by Congress in the 1970s when politicians sought to require CBS to turn over outtakes of a controversial CBS documentary, "The Selling of the Pentagon." The network refused and eventually the inquiry was dropped.

"It was an example of a news organization that was prepared to take great risks to defend its editorial independence," said Abrams.

Related: Senate demands answers from Facebook

"I don't mean to suggest that Facebook must remain silent when it is under attack. But it should take care not to cede its own hard won authority about what articles to cite or recommend to Congress."

One issue about this controversy that troubles some is the way that Facebook depicts its role in selecting what news is shown.

"It has always represented itself as an unbiased aggregator of news on its trending site," according to Larsen. "That is, Facebook says it doesn't have an editorial position."

After the Gizmodo report was published, Facebook Trending manager Tom Stocky wrote that the company has "rigorous guidelines in place for the review team to ensure consistency and neutrality."

Those guidelines don't allow reviewers to suppress or prioritize political perspectives or media outlets, he says. And these are the guidelines that Thune and others want to know more about.

The company's official description of the feature is simply: "a list of topics and hashtags that have recently spiked in popularity on Facebook. This list is personalized based on a number of factors, including Pages you've liked, your location and what's trending across Facebook."

Until the Gizmodo report, many people weren't aware that Facebook had a team to oversee the Trending Topics feature.

Suzy Fulton, a technology lawyer said that it's possible someone might sue Facebook based on fraud or deceptive practices -- but it would be hard to see what the damages would be, "even assuming you have a valid claim to begin with."

"We are certainly a litigious society," she said. "[But] you can opt out, you can go to Fox or some other conservative news media for your news if you feel Facebook is not telling the right story on its Trending Topics."

CNNMoney (New York) First published May 12, 2016: 1:58 PM ET

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Is Facebook protected under the First Amendment? - May. 12, 2016

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During a speech in Kentucky Sunday she referred to "my husband, who I will put in charge of revitalizing the economy 'cause he knows what he's doing."

The U.S. economy boomed during President Clinton's administration. His economic record is an effective selling point, especially as U.S. growth remains sluggish, and most voters worry about the economy.

During Clinton's eight years as president, the U.S. economy added more than 22 million jobs. That's slightly more jobs than were added during the combined 22-year tenure of the four most recent Republican presidents.

In the spring of 2000, Clinton's final year in office, a greater percentage of Americans had jobs than any time since record-keeping began soon after World War II.

Giving Clinton's policies full credit for boosting the economy isn't entirely fair. The rapid growth of the Internet during his eight years in office greatly increased business productivity and profits and helped to fuel the hiring boom. There was also a bubble in Internet stocks, which poured money into the tech sector and helped spurred hiring.

But government policies did help also. The federal government actually ran surpluses rather than deficits during Clinton's final three years in office, and that reduced the need for government borrowing and helped to keep interest rates relatively low.

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But there are critics on both the right and the left who argue that Clinton's policies laid the groundwork for the economic problems that were to follow.

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Hillary Clinton's campaign's press secretary Nick Merrill said that her comments don't reflect any decision to name her husband to a some specific post in her administration.

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Earlier this month in another speech in Kentucky she said, "I told my husband he's got to come out of retirement and be in charge of this because you know he's got more ideas a minute that anybody I know."

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CNNMoney (New York) First published May 16, 2016: 8:35 AM ET

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Censorship - The New York Times

What is Censorship? Censorship is the act of altering, adjusting, editing, or banning of media resulting from the presumption that its content is perceived to be objectionable, incendiary, illicit, or immoral by the presiding governmental body of a specific country or nation or a private institution. The ideology and methodology of Censorship varies greatly on both domestic and international levels, as well as public and private institutions. Governmental Censorship

Governmental Censorship takes place in the event that the content, subject matter, or intent latent within an individual form of media is considered to exist in contrast with preexisting statutory regulations and legislation. In many cases, the censorship of media will be analogous with corollary laws in existence. For example, in countries or nations in which specific actions or activities are prohibited, media containing that nature of presumed illegal subject matter may be subject to Censorship. However, the mere mention of such subject matter will not always result in censorship; the following methods of classification are typically enacted with regard to a governmentally-instituted statutory Censorship: Censorship within the Public Sector The public sector is defined as any setting in which individuals of all ages inhabit that comply with legal statutes of accepted morality and proper behavior; this differs by locale the nature of the public sector is defined with regard to the nature of the respective form of media and its adherence to legislation: The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) sanctioned by the federal government of the United States in order to regulate the activity taking place in the public setting-based media Censorship and Intent With regard to Censorship, intent is legally defined as the intended result for which one hopes as a result of their participation in the release or authorship of media; typically, proponents for individual censorship will be required to prove that the intent latent within the media in question was enacted knowingly and deliberately in any lack of adherence to legislation Censorship and Privacy

With Regard to censorship, privacy is a state in which an individual is free to act according to their respective discretion with regard to legal or lawful behavior; however, regardless of the private sector, the adherence to legislation and legality is required Private and Institutional Censorship

Private institutions retain the right to censor media which they may find objectionable; this is due to the fact that the participants in private or independent institutions are defined as willing participants. As a result, upon joining or participating in a private institution, the individuals concede to adhere to applicable regulations:

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