Media's Facebook-Is-Evil Claims Don't Add Up

Robby Soave at 'Reason' calls the Facebook Papers a 'nothingburger'
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 26, 2021 8:58 AM CDT
Media's Facebook-Is-Evil Claims Don't Add Up
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.   (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

Facebook is taking a tremendous amount of flak this week thanks to the Facebook Papers—reporting from nearly 20 media outfits based on internal documents released by whistleblower Frances Haugen. The Washington Post has key takeaways here, but the upshot of coverage is that Facebook "prioritizes its business over safety," as a post at Axios puts it. In fact, this might be "the biggest crisis in the company's history" is how a headline at CNN frames things. Contrast that, however, with a headline at Reason: "The Facebook Papers Are a Big Fat Nothingburger." In his analysis, Robby Soave digs into the coverage and concludes that the draconian claims made in story after story are not backed up by what the internal documents actually reveal.

"The real takeaway is that Facebook has been struggling to attract the young users it wants, faces robust competition, and generates apoplectic denunciation from mainstream journalists mostly because they resent the social media giant for shaking up the news industry," writes Soave. Yes, there are areas of concerns, such as Mark Zuckerberg's acquiescence to the Vietnam government on the censoring of dissidents. (The Washington Post lays that out.) Then again, "bowing to the Vietnamese government's demand for greater censorship is being treated as a bad thing by some of the same outlets that are shaming Facebook for not bowing to the U.S. government's request for greater censorship," Soave writes. Read his full opinion piece here. (More Facebook stories.)

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