[whatshisface]

I wish other companies could get the same kind of scrutiny as Facebook. For some reason while most scandals are pushed down and quickly forgotten, Facebook is being dragged around for all its worth. Maybe they weren't planting enough stories.

[mockindignant]

Which companies do you refer?

I am fine with other companies facing public backlash for their actions just like Facebook is now if they are doing things as shady as Facebook.

[Puer]

Google with YouTube and Twitter? Even though most congressional hearings are a farce, Google didn't even show up to speak with congress. The amount of racist, nazi propaganda I'm exposed to on Twitter every day far outnumbers what I've ever seen on Facebook.

[whatshisface]

Another commenter mentioned Equifax, which I agree is a good example. They have done a lot more to damage me than Facebook could hope to. (I don't have a choice about being in Equifax's database, but at least I can block the little informants on websites I visit.)

[busterarm]

Google.

[dijit]

I feel quite the opposite. Outside of hackernews there is almost no scrutiny as far as I see. (In the eu anyway)

[radicalbyte]

It's probably a deliberate strategy by the carbon industry to distract attention away from them.

Facebook et al all deserve the attention, mind, especially in mobile. The amount of information mining done via apps (and especially by pre-installed apps which you cannot uninstall) is a scandal.

[existencebox]

I feel the same way. It regularly frustrates me to see the magnitude of corporate misdeeds that just go unmentioned. Equifax resulted in little to no real action despite, what is in my mind, a far more powerful and privacy-sensitive position. (nearly-mandatory access to my spending habits will tell you MUCH more about my life than a social site or tracking cookie that I can realistically avoid.) And this not even mentioning the passing fancies we get for everything from medical billing abuses to undischargable student debt without showing nearly the level of tenacity we do with FB.

Hell, just comparing them to what the tobacco execs did in terms of physical harm and outright mortality-causing misdirection for almost half a century shows how skewed the comparison is to my eyes. It's like the talking heads on the news who compared <hot button topic> to Hitler. Sure it may be a bad thing but you've just lost all sense of relativism.

Additionally, the complaint that facebook is somehow the threat to democracy (and to our credit, other topics have come and gone to question "how'd we get here" but FB is really the recurring theme) has always sounded to me far too much like a "let's find a scapegoat for an outcome we don't want to blame ourselves for" (Trump) especially given that when many articles have risen to the top showing how _our own executive_ may be taking part in truly criminal action (far beyond just "we're slimy corporate executives") this doesn't even make the front page, but we'll beat the dead horse of FB all day long.