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by CPLX 2741 days ago
He literally is the media.

What’s wrong with the idea that that he observed something, made a decision, and then acted on it? Or is he presumed to have no agency?

1 comments

Maybe you're right - maybe Facebook is doing all this bad stuff and Walt Mossberg happened to notice and decided to follow through.

But I'm skeptical - I think the more traditional news media (aka the folks who write stories and collect facts) tends to view news aggregators as a threat to their business model. I think the idea that Facebook ought to be required to screen whatever news it aggregates for "truthfulness" is absurd and I (sometimes) think that the constant refrain of "Facebook did X Bad Thing" is closer to activism than journalism.

But I could be wrong - I'm not as certain as my first post indicated.

I don't think news media outlets are very concerned about social networks anymore; NYT is on literally every app in everyone's pocket, whereas before it was just in the hands of their direct subscribers and sales.