These companies are so use to handouts from local governments they are trying to use the same playbook.
If facebook is horrible for not giving money to these groups then they are horrible for even asking when charities trying to cure disease are not getting funded at all by facebook.
Calling facebook manipulative and not realizing their even industry is founded on manipulating what facts are presented to emotionally trap their viewer into giving their attention. Facebook copied the playbook.
Nonsense appeals like this one really makes you wonder what it's like for Rupert Murdoch et. al these days. Your penthouse is nice, but something feels off. Nobody is talking to you, the TV is on but nobody's watching. A press event happens at the White House, and your daughter reads it to you from her phone before you even see it hit the Fox ticker reel. Something inside such a man must snap, watching the concept of 'news' obsolete itself before his very eyes. For someone who's namesake is built on traditional media, it would probably feel like watching yourself die. He stumbles away to fetch the vinyl for Komm, süßer Tod and sits listening with his hands folded until he can find a way to make it all work out.
On the bright side, the cries from traditional media have garnered about as much credibility as Craig Wright running up a bar tab. Hopefully the commercial nature of either side helps to paint their true intentions.
But no, that might paint Facebook as potentially acting reasonably — can't have that. Let's just laundry list everything we think makes them look bad and hope people don't look too deep into the "Facebook isn't 'paying' for news" line. It doesn't matter that they're also dropping news in the US where there's no such law, right?