I had begun to give up hope on the common sense of the masses to whom these stories are being pitched, but the comments in this thread have renewed my hope. Th

I had begun to give up hope on the common sense of the masses to whom these stories are being pitched, but the comments in this thread have renewed my hope. These hit-pieces are getting very tired and don't really do anything but put scary spins on things that have been public info for years. It's a shame a once-respected news org like the NYT has to resort to scrounging around looking for anything, anything that will make for a FUD story about Facebook to get some page views. Problem is that they suffer no penalty as people seem happy to take the headline and run with it and the subtleties of the situation which Facebook itself has discussed in many instances including this one are discounted. Stories about "well it's not that bad" don't sell as well as "OMG HOLY SH*T FACEBOOK HAS BEEN GIVING YOUR MESSAGES TO EVERYONE!!!" and getting clicks is all these orgs care about now because it's all they can do to stay afloat.