Sometimes newsworthy things become newsworthy after the actual time of events. Harvey Weinstein's sexual abuse had been hinted at for years but only this past year did the amount of reporting and attention cause him to face real legal and business problems. Same with Bill Cosby.
It is somewhat thought provoking though that said newspaper may have felt compelled to comply with the request because of Facebook's power (for instance not wanting to lose favorable placement in feed or trending sections).
So to me the newsworthiness of this depends on how likely it is that they changed it because it was simply inaccurate versus something more nefarious (such as above). I believe that may be too subjective to determine at this point so probably no fruitful discussion can come in trying to figure that out.
Yes, it is newsworthy because while those of us on HN have been familiar with all the crap that Facebook has been doing for a while now, the common folk have not.