Online Public Relations Thoughts

Facebook has kicked New York University researchers off of its site.  The investigators were looking into the extent of disinformation advertising during the last election.  Facebook claims they were gathering data on people and violating their privacy.  NYU says it was doing no such thing, but it had determined that Facebook was hosting ads propagating lies into November 2020 after it claimed it had controlled them.  This is a black eye for Facebook and a PR faux pas.  If the company had nothing to worry about, it could have allowed the researchers to continue.  Transparency is a key to credible social media, and Facebook's action guaranteed it isn't ready to share with the public what shows on its platform.  It couldn't have come at a worse time for the company.  Congress already is moving to legislate controls on social media.