Why is Facebook's Propaganda in the Washington Post?

The Washington Post ran a de facto Facebook press release in its op-ed section today. It was a bizarre decision; the newspaper's already embroiled in one ethics scandal, so why cuddle up to a close, public friend of the paper?

It's hard to dispute that Mark Zuckerberg's op-ed was a softball, long on propaganda and short on news. As we reported earlier, the Facebook CEO sidestepped many of the recent, news-making controversies his company has sparked. Instead, he said the social network should do a better job of organizing privacy settings and would get to work on some unspecified changes to the settings. He didn't address Facebook's recent accidental privacy breaches, or the numerous instances in which Facebook has pushed, and in some cases forced, users to take some of their personal information public.

But don't take our word for it. Here's what some other commentators said: "Nonapology" was how Peter Kafka at All Things D described the piece. "What's more important is what's not being said," said Sarah Perez at ReadWriteWeb. "Something's amiss," said Jared Newman at PC World. TechCrunch noticed a decided lack of meat. "More of an acknowledgment that Facebook has heard the criticism and will be responding to it," was Jason Kincaid's verdict there. "PR-speaky," said Rachel Sklar at Mediaite.

Sure, Zuckerberg's piece had a few fans, like former Valleywagger Paul Boutin at VentureBeat, who said Post editors got Zuckerberg to "whittle" his thoughts "down to one breath." But even by the partisan standards of the Washington, DC Beltway, where mutual back-scratching and puffed-up propaganda are par for the course, the piece seemed awfully empty.

http://gawker.com/5546687/why-is-facebooks-propaganda-in-the-washington-post