A good counter example is Twitter which had equal if not more exposure on Russian ads but they have kept mum. And no one is going after them.
Right for who?
> fb should just stop communicating as that will give media less fodder
Oh I see. Right for Facebook's public image. Wrong for their customers which have a right to know what the hell Facebook has been doing with their data.
If you're not paying for it, you're the product.
As a rule, a company's customers are revenue sources.
The problem in this case is that FB represents a direct threat to the media businesses, and they are incentivized to drag out the issue as long as necessary
Maybe the problem is that they've actually done something objectionable here, and it's not just a conspiracy against them.
That is very clear, and I think you missed the point.
We've seen numerous examples recently, including Equifax and Wells Fargo and Mylan, of objectionable situations where the strategy of "say as little as possible" allowed the companies to move on and show even greater profits. None of those companies represent a threat to the media entities. What makes the current Facebook situation different from those is the added incentives.
In other words, nothing here is out of the ordinary.