Nothing new here really. Propaganda is as old as human communication. Finding new ways to distribute misinformation is the human norm. Afaik Facebook has also been praised for things like Egypt spring (not sure if good actually), Barack Obamas election, etc. It's not as if only bad things came out of new media outlets. Sure, they could do a lot better, but the scape goating of fb is a bit simple minded.
Also yes, Genocide is terrible. But the amount of people that cigarettes kill every year is orders of magnitudes more than this.
That’s the thing: tobacco execs are still around! Making a product that literally kills millions of people every year. The only reason more outrage isn’t targeted at them is I think we believe that with enough backlash, we can change the situation with Facebook whereas cigarettes seem unstoppable.
I think the world is too complex now to think in such absolute terms. Scale matters a lot. Yes we should try to avoid anyone dying and even a single death is too many. But as evil grows more indirect and subtle, you have to be aware of the details and the scale to pay attention to the right thing. Especially when the role of Facebook in this was more indirect (how much is the Genocide attributable to the Myanmar government and the existence of the internet vs. Facebook?)
The role of Tobacco companies is much more direct (well established link between cigarettes and death), and the scale is far greater.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/18/brazil-jair-bo...