The saviour complex of Facebook’s critics

News: How the media covered its own coverage of the revelations made by Haugen is disheartening.

Why the conduct of Western media in the present case is unstaisfactory?

Whistle-blowers and the Western media have exposed how the social media platform allows dangerous social media manipulation in developing countries. But they haven’t made the media and journalists from the global south a part of this coverage.

The sharing of Haugen’s documents related to Facebook was tightly orchestrated. Only a few media organisations had the access to the Facebook Papers.

For instance, Media that publish in Hindi or Bengali or any of these other developing world languages from anywhere in the global south were not part of this exclusive Facebook Papers consortium

This shows that even those who have the power to regulate Facebook (US lawmakers and regulators, the whistle-blowers, and the media with privileged access) don’t seem to care much for the developing world or at least trust them enough to include them.

Source: This post is based on the article “The saviour complex of Facebook’s critics” published in Indian Express on 10th November 2021.