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We are discussing the press' behavior in this thread. Whataboutism ("but the other guy did something bad?") doesn't help us with understanding why journalists s

• gerbilly 8y ago
  > We are discussing the press' behavior in this thread. I wasn't aware we were discussing just that. It took people a while to figure out the potential downsides of social media, press included. Are you going to tell me that if Facebook is dragged before parliament and congress that the press is supposed to not cover that so as to appear 'fair' to facebook? Those events are newsworthy and they are being covered. As far as privacy concerns, they seem legitimate to me, and also newsworthy to the layman, who may not have considered the side effects of using a voluntary surveillance platform such as facebook. (Also I never really understood the urge to defend the powerful. Powerful organizations like facebook don't need our moral or material support.)
  • dexen 8y ago
    This thread started with >There is an intensive negative media campaign against Facebook lately, rightful or not., to which I replied. We are in agreement that the press should hold Facebook and other powerful players to account. My point of interest is why (in my memory) the press was at first covering up for Facebook only to rather abruptly turn into harsh, pervasive criticism against it. It seems to be a repeating pattern in the industry, in which an upstart ran by a dashing founder is for a long while the darling of the media only to suddenly find itself at the receiving end of relentless criticism. Sure Facebook deserves a lot of criticism for their various underhanded and harmful actions; perhaps even the negatives outweight the positives overall. I am asking, where was the criticism early on? Why was Facebook a darling of the media for so long, before it all changed?
    • gerbilly 8y ago
      > I am asking, where was the criticism early on? Why was Facebook a darling of the media for so long, before it all changed? I don't think there is a big grand plan behind the arc in the coverage. In the early days of these companies, the iconoclast story was simply easier to write. Also, you have to know how journalists work. Outside of opinion pieces and editorials, a journalist needs preferably two sources to make a claim in a news piece. In the early days, there simply were fewer critics of facebook or Uber, and certainly the critics were less organized, so they didn't get much coverage. But, I bet if you look back to the first days of facebook, that you will find some negative coverage, but at that time it would have appeared speculative, and would have been a minority voice. Also, it's right there in the word: "news". Somebody getting rich off a new idea is news. Just like cavemen would have considered it news that you can eat the orange berries if you cook them first. Novel risks are also a staple of news. So perhaps the arc went from 'Man gets rich with crazy new idea', to 'People using new thing face a novel risk' (surveillance, loss of privacy).