The sinister side of me saw an orchestrated attack by the media (lets call them the establishment) that FB or Zuck can not be trusted to manage FB [1]. There has been a constant narrative, just google around these keywords. Surprisingly from the same "journalistic" machine that pushed a pro-Iraq war narrative without asking the questions they should have asked for [2].
My cynical view is, that this was a way to push FB to censor media content in favor of the establishment. Essentially, FB should allow Washington Post, NY Times, etc. to be shared with no shadow censorship, but the lesser established journalistic outlet should be censored.
You can see it from their side. NY Times or Washington Post are brands. But with FB, their brand value is not bringing them as much traffic as lesser entities. So, if I'm Bezos or others who own these entities, I would be unhappy to see FB providing an equal playing field to everyone.
I think the "RussiaGate" provided the best push for this argument. That if there is no censorship by FB, foreign players can influence our election. Though Comey's letter shown to have impacted the election [3], the $50k of ad buying on FB, made the news round and continues to pervade among many people that these ads probably changed the outcome of the election.
I'm sad to see Zuck and FB have succumbed to these pressures and are closing down venues for alternative journalist to state their views.
My cynical view is, that this was a way to push FB to censor media content in favor of the establishment. Essentially, FB should allow Washington Post, NY Times, etc. to be shared with no shadow censorship, but the lesser established journalistic outlet should be censored.
You can see it from their side. NY Times or Washington Post are brands. But with FB, their brand value is not bringing them as much traffic as lesser entities. So, if I'm Bezos or others who own these entities, I would be unhappy to see FB providing an equal playing field to everyone.
I think the "RussiaGate" provided the best push for this argument. That if there is no censorship by FB, foreign players can influence our election. Though Comey's letter shown to have impacted the election [3], the $50k of ad buying on FB, made the news round and continues to pervade among many people that these ads probably changed the outcome of the election.
I'm sad to see Zuck and FB have succumbed to these pressures and are closing down venues for alternative journalist to state their views.
[1] http://time.com/5125267/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-news-feed-r... [2] http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/watch.html [3] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-comey-letter-probab...