Opinion: Facebook doesn’t get it

Was it the reason Trump won? That’s the wrong question. View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Wednesday, March 21, 2018 [NYTimes.com/Opinion »]( [David Leonhardt] David Leonhardt Op-Ed Columnist The election of Donald Trump was so shocking — and damaging to the country — that many people went looking for a scapegoat. There was a long list of candidates. Hillary’s flawed campaign. Bernie’s long campaign. The Electoral College. The media. Sexist voters. Racist voters. Economically anxious voters. Nonvoters. James Comey. Anthony Weiner. Vladimir Putin. Twitter. And Facebook. By spreading false news stories and giving a megaphone to Russian trolls, Facebook — a vastly larger social network than Twitter — played a meaningful role in the presidential campaign. Of course, so did many other suspects on the list. There was no single factor that allowed Trump to win. It was a confluence. If anything, the role of Facebook and its executives has sometimes been exaggerated. “Whatever role they played surely pales in relative importance to a whole host of other factors,” Ben Thompson, the author of the Stratechery blog, pointed out yesterday ([in his subscriber-only newsletter]( “and it makes sense that Facebook executives would feel persecuted on that front.” But, as Thompson explains, “The problem comes when arguing about details results in missing the big picture: fake news on Facebook may not have been the deciding factor many think it was, but Facebook’s effect on the news surely mattered.” And Facebook’s executives have indeed missed this big picture, claiming that their company played no significant role in Trump’s victory. That’s simply wrong, and the company’s defensiveness is one reason that its image problems are becoming significant. Facebook, [as Vox’s Emily Stuart wrote yesterday]( “is under siege from lawmakers, regulators, users, shareholders, and even its own employees amid revelations that Cambridge Analytics, a data analytics firm used by the Trump campaign in the 2016 election, secretly harvested personal data from 50 million of its users.” In a 2014 speech, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s C.E.O., said, “In every single thing we do, we always put people first.” By that, he said he meant that Facebook would give people “control over how they share their information.” Facebook didn’t do that. “Where is Mark Zuckerberg?” [asks Recode’s Kurt Wagner](. “Facebook has dealt with these kinds of firestorms before,” Wagner writes. “But this time feels different. Users are fed up. Politicians are fed up. And investors are clearly concerned: Facebook just had its worst two-day stock performance since 2012, the year the company IPO’d. It has lost more than $50 billion off its market cap.” “It’s time” for Zuckerberg and other top Facebook officials “to come and testify,” Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, [said yesterday.]( Meanwhile, at the White House ... “This is depressing,” Matt Glassman of Georgetown University [tweeted]( referring to [the story]( about Trump ignoring his national security advisers and cozying up to Putin on a phone call. “But boy, think about the atmosphere at the WH that leads to stuff like this leaking. Toxic.” In The Times. Kevin Rudd, the former prime minister of Australia, is an astute observer of China, and I recommend [his new op-ed on Xi Jinping](. The full Opinion report from The Times follows. Op-Ed Columnist [Get Me Back My Turkey]( By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN A Bedouin lesson for handling President Trump and Vladimir Putin. Op-Ed Columnist [Trump Hacked the Media Right Before Our Eyes]( By ROSS DOUTHAT It was television, not Facebook, that made him president. Op-Ed Columnist [The Calm Before the Stormy]( By FRANK BRUNI What’s behind President Trump’s curious silence about a porn star and her story? Editorial [Trump’s Bluster on the Opioid Epidemic]( By THE EDITORIAL BOARD In a speech this week, the president laid out a plan to address the crisis that was at turns thin on details and alarming in content. Contributing Op-Ed Writer [Aggressive Abroad, Putin Is Cautious at Home]( By RUCHIR SHARMA In his fourth term, will he push Russia to become an economic power? HOW ARE WE DOING? We’d love your feedback on this newsletter. Please email thoughts and suggestions to [leonhardt@nytimes.com](mailto:leonhardt@nytimes.com?subject=Opinion%20Today%20Newsletter%20Feedback). ADVERTISEMENT In Case You Missed It [What the West Doesn’t Get About Xi Jinping]( By KEVIN RUDD Why would China commit to a liberal world order that doesn’t reflect its own political values? [Why I Stay in Gaza]( Michelle Thompson By ATEF ABU SAIF More of the same means that things are only getting worse. And yet. Op-Ed Contributor [Bigger Is Not Better for Ocean Conservation]( By LUIZ A. ROCHA Nations are protecting vast expanses of open sea but their first priority should be their richly biodiverse coastal waters. Vietnam ‘67 [The Chopper Pilots]( By BILL LORD I made over 50 helicopter assaults during Vietnam. Each one had a story. SIGN UP FOR THE VIETNAM ’67 NEWSLETTER Examining America’s long war in Southeast Asia [through the course]( of a single year. ADVERTISEMENT Letters [Debating a Two-State Solution for the Middle East]( Readers fault intransigent Palestinians and the threat of Israel becoming a “semi-theocratic” state. LIKE THIS EMAIL? Forward it to your friends, and let them know they can sign up [here](. FOLLOW OPINION [Facebook] [FACEBOOK]( [Twitter] [@nytopinion]( [Pinterest] [Pinterest]( Get more [NYTimes.com newsletters »](  | Get unlimited access to NYTimes.com and our NYTimes apps. [Subscribe »]( ABOUT THIS EMAIL You received this message because you signed up for NYTimes.com's Opinion Today newsletter. [Unsubscribe]( | [Manage Subscriptions]( | [Change Your Email]( | [Privacy Policy]( | [Contact]( | [Advertise]( Copyright 2018 The New York Times Company 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018