Left-wing journalists and activists had a social media meltdown earlier today, after news broke that social media giant Facebook has hired a former Fox News executive producer, Jennifer Williams, to work on Facebook News.
Facebook News is the social network’s official curated feed of handpicked news sources for its users. According to spokesman Adam Isserlis, Williams will “work with other curators to build out how we can add video news components to the curated sections of Facebook News in the future.”
Left-wingers on Twitter reacted with outrage to the news. A Media Matters employee quickly posted an article about the “terrible things that Fox & Friends did while new Facebook News hire Jennifer Williams was a senior producer for the show.”
1. A short list of terrible things that Fox & Friends did while new Facebook News hire Jennifer Williams was a senior producer for the show. She ultimately spent 18 years at the network, 12 on F&F. https://t.co/j9a9erkvCY
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) January 28, 2020
Far-left activist group Sleeping Giants, which specializes in spreading smears to the advertisers of conservative websites to financially deplatform them, accused Fox of spreading “the Seth Rich conspiracy theory.”
Cool. Now that you’ve hired a producer from Fox to help curate your facts at @Facebook, can you ask her what their internal investigation ever found out about why they spread the Seth Rich conspiracy theory? https://t.co/JOvIeMx2i0
— Sleeping Giants (@slpng_giants) January 28, 2020
Judd Legum, a former writer for far-left blog ThinkProgress, called on dissatisfied employees of Zuckerberg to come forward.
If you work at Facebook and have thoughts on the company hiring a Fox News producer to run video for Facebook News, contact me securely at jlegum@protonmail.com.
I'm also on Signal and other secure messaging apps.
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) January 28, 2020
Progressive environmentalist David Rothschild suggested Republicans run the show at Facebook News.
Are there any non-Republicans in leadership positions in Facebook's news or public policy groups?
— David Rothschild (@DavMicRot) January 28, 2020
“Facebook is the new fox news,” said former Media Matters activist Oliver Willis.
facebook is the new fox news
— Oliver Willis (@owillis) January 28, 2020
A HuffPost editor said Facebook needs to be “completely shut down before it gets any worse.”
Facebook and Fox News already have a successful relationship. What that platform needs is better security, better moderation, and to be completely shut down before it gets any worse https://t.co/dclDuakNgc
— Andy Campbell (@AndyBCampbell) January 28, 2020
Williams previously worked as an executive producer for Fox News’ Daily Briefing with Dana Perino. Perino has enjoyed a closer relationship with Facebook than most; she was invited to attend a behind-closed-doors meeting between Facebook executives and conservative media figures in 2016, following a scandal over the company allegedly suppressing conservative news stories.
More recently, Perino was granted an exclusive interview with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, during which she neglected to ask any questions about the numerous prominent conservatives who are currently banned from the platform.
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News.
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