Whose true intentions are hidden, and who is trying to lobby? The person who posted this on HN and all of the people who upvoted it here and all the comments critical of FB here and twitter and twitter users and bloggers and redditors and, yes, traditional news?
It seems like the assertion is that this isn't newsworthy... despite the fact that huge amounts of people clearly care, but that this is only really making news for a reason totally separate from the fact that there is new leaked data and people clearly care.
The general idea is that Facebook will assent to more censorship of undesirable content if and only if the same standard is applied to their competitors. This is achieved via legislation of new regulations. And legislation typically needs some semblance of popular support to pass, hence a ginned up/accelerated/forced narrative. The net effect of new regulations would be to shore up Facebook's market share and dominance of social media, since they are the biggest and can most efficiently execute on any new regulations.
A similar thing happened in the tobacco industry. For decades tobacco was happy to sell cigs relatively freely. But there was a turning point where they acknowledged their unhealthiness, At this point Big Tobacco actually campaigned for greater regulation, and the net result was a consolidation of the entire industry.
There are plenty of other examples as well. Monopoly power is made and preserved by regulation.
It seems like the assertion is that this isn't newsworthy... despite the fact that huge amounts of people clearly care, but that this is only really making news for a reason totally separate from the fact that there is new leaked data and people clearly care.