> Looks like the change was confirmed by the original reporter to be as the result of a request from the Facebook PR team.
As snowwrestler pointed out, you are wrong in the most exact way. The OP article did not provide evidence or confirmation that Facebook PR team made this request, or that NYT made an editorial change because of FBPR. The OP says that it never got comment from Facebook PR. Meanwhile, the NYT reporters have outright denied that FBPR had any influence:
The second tweet is probably more interesting. The reporter says that she talked to FB PR, because it was how FBPR wanted to deliver a formal statement re: Stamos. This is common practice, because of how anal/tightly wound companies are in wanting to control the official message is. And reporters have discretion of how to interpret or what to include from the PR message (the NYT apparently excerpted just, "as productive").
There is literally no evidence offered to support collusion between FB and NYT. There are no witnesses or whistleblowers, not even anonymous ones, with any claims. And everyone obviously involved (NYT and FB) has outright denied it.
The headline for this story is absolute trash -- because the story doesn't even establish that Facebook even talked to NYT about changing its story, nevermind forcing the New York Times to censor itself. Under HN guidelines it should be changed to a much weaker assertion but I can't imagine how to water it down without rendering it pointless.
As snowwrestler pointed out, you are wrong in the most exact way. The OP article did not provide evidence or confirmation that Facebook PR team made this request, or that NYT made an editorial change because of FBPR. The OP says that it never got comment from Facebook PR. Meanwhile, the NYT reporters have outright denied that FBPR had any influence:
https://twitter.com/sheeraf/status/976238483122487296
https://twitter.com/nicoleperlroth/status/976159345195941888
The second tweet is probably more interesting. The reporter says that she talked to FB PR, because it was how FBPR wanted to deliver a formal statement re: Stamos. This is common practice, because of how anal/tightly wound companies are in wanting to control the official message is. And reporters have discretion of how to interpret or what to include from the PR message (the NYT apparently excerpted just, "as productive").
There is literally no evidence offered to support collusion between FB and NYT. There are no witnesses or whistleblowers, not even anonymous ones, with any claims. And everyone obviously involved (NYT and FB) has outright denied it.
The headline for this story is absolute trash -- because the story doesn't even establish that Facebook even talked to NYT about changing its story, nevermind forcing the New York Times to censor itself. Under HN guidelines it should be changed to a much weaker assertion but I can't imagine how to water it down without rendering it pointless.