Fact-checking FacebookMark Zuckerberg's trip to Capitol Hill this week featured a barrage of uncomfortable questions about Facebook's data-mining, user privacy settings and other...
| |  | | Democracy Dies in Darkness | | | | | | | | | | The truth behind the rhetoric | | | | | | Fact-checking Facebook Mark Zuckerberg's trip to Capitol Hill this week featured a barrage of uncomfortable questions about Facebook's data-mining, user privacy settings and other thorny issues. Although he's a tech guy, Zuckerberg proved adept at the evasive maneuvers that often characterize politicians. The Facebook chief chose his words carefully, dodged or referred questions to his "team," or gave only partial answers at times. Some of the responses he did give studiously avoided mentioning anything that could make Facebook look bad. We found some of the missing links in Zuckerberg's testimony and our fact-check decodes his answers about Facebook's data collection practices. | | Enjoy this newsletter? Forward it to someone else who'd like it! If this e-mail was forwarded to you, sign up here for the weekly newsletter. Hear something fact-checkable? Send it here, we'll check it out. | | The story of a New York hedge fund and a Wisconsin town "Hedge funds" have become favored villains for politicians pointing to capitalism run amok.Their latest purported victim? A Wisconsin town. In a new campaign ad, Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) tells the camera, "A hedge fund in New York takes control of a great Wisconsin business, shuts down a factory and 450 people lose their jobs. The town of Brokaw goes bankrupt. It's not right. We cannot let these predators devastate our communities, so I am working to stop these Wall Street hedge funds from destroying another town." So, did a hedge fund bring down a town? The hedge fund in question is Starboard Value LP, an activist hedge fund based in New York. It focuses on identifying undervalued companies and pushing management to make changes that would enhance shareholder value. That can often mean selling or closing lines of businesses. But, in this case, Starboard did not control the company at the time it was closed and was not part of the executive decision-making to close the factory. It did own a minority stake and was advocating for changes, but we found no Starboard statements calling for the closure of the factory — and company statements at the time said it had no role. The loss of hundreds of factory jobs is obviously a tragedy. But Baldwin too quickly looks for a corporate villain when economic and competitive pressures almost certainly played a more important role. For her rush to judgment, Baldwin earns Three Pinocchios. | | | Scroll down for this week's Pinocchio roundup. — Meg Kelly and Salvador Rizzo | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
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