As a site dominated by tech industry employees, it's time that people working in tech stop simply nodding their heads when people shift the cultural spotlight on corporate malfeasance onto tech's bully target of the year/decade, over and over and over again. We get it, social media is fucked up. Great. Now, where are the Frances Haugen's of BigChemical or BigCPG? Why aren't they household names? Why aren't we collectively outraged they aren't at congressional hearings?
This piece by Vice absolutely embodies the snide tone, the absolute derision with which we decided it's OK to paint Facebook. That's well and good, Facebook isn't great, but doing so while turning a blind eye to far greater crimes is a crime that itself ought to be castigated. A journalists mission is in part to embody the Fourth Estate - to be a watchdog. When all journalism does is stand around the classroom and pat each other on the back and point at the dunce-hat wearing stooge of the decade making obvious mistakes in an echo chamber while ignoring the subtle crimes of the popular kid, it's worthy of the same snide comments itself.