Daily News Article - December 16, 2020
1. How much did each of the following executives give to the Joe Biden presidential campaign and to the Democrats?
a) Erin Egan, Facebook’s vice president of public policy and chief privacy officer
b) Facebook’s chief financial officer, David Wehner
c) Facebook’s chief revenue officer, David Fischer
d) Twitter's vice president Matt Derella
e) Twitter’s senior director of product management James Kelm
2. a) In addition to the specific donations made by the executives above, what does the reporter note about a number of Facebook vice presidents?
b) What does the reporter note about dozens of other senior employees at Twitter?
3. a) What did both Twitter and Facebook attempt to do to the New York Post’s exposé on Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden?
b) How did the companies attempt to justify censoring a major news story?
4. Do you think the Facebook and Twitter executives’ strong financial support for Joe Biden and Democrats was the reason for the companies censoring the story that would have hurt Biden should voters have read about it? Explain your answer.
5. If Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google and YouTube censored reports critical of President Trump, while also running negative stories on Joe Biden, would your reaction to this article be different? Explain your answer.
CHALLENGE: Read the links under “Resources.” Do you think the news media (CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, The New York Times, etc.) and social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram…) were helping news consumers/customers by blocking/banning/censoring the information from them? Explain your answer.