Twitter already isn't neutral, considering the "trending" feed is editorialized and certain trends are suppressed and others boosted.

Twitter is a publisher. They have their fingers on the scale in both directions in multiple places.

I thought trending feed was based on metrics

Probably, yes. Also, it is very likely that any posts/trends that are not "desirable" are prevented manually from entering the trending feed as well.

"Cocaine" trends every Saturday early morning, leading me to believe nobody has their thumbs on that particular scale.

I think Twitter is OK with drugs and adult content being trendy, but not OK with politically incorrect ones. There has to be a manual approval process, but effectively invisible, because in my opinion, an automated and non-supervised system for trending is a recipe for the disaster.

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