In NPR’s coverage of the Facebook papers from October 25, 2021 Rachel Martin, host of the podcast, speaks with Tory Newmeyer, from The Washington Post.

During the pair’s conversation, Tory explains that a whistleblower from Facebook has exposed CEO Mark Zuckerberg for approving the decision to censor posts in Vietnam. The Vietnamese government asked Facebook to remove any negative posts about the government and Facebook agreed to it. Vietnam is ruled by the Communist Party and is preparing for their elections. 

Zuckerberg had to make a decision on whether to lose Vietnam’s users and the profit he would make from them or whether to defy his previous thoughts on the importance of free speech. It is clear that Zuckerberg being the businessman that he is, chose money over what is right. When trying to justify his decision Zuckerberg claimed that it was better to agree to censor posts rather than take away the opportunity for Vietnamese citizens to use the social media platform all together. 

Although NPR claimed Zuckerberg was a “micromanager” and had a say in every decision about the operations of the company, I thought that NPR could have been a bit more critical of him. I think NPR spoke very neutrally about Zuckerberg. Maybe this had to do with the fact that Facebook is one of NPR’s financial supporters. This was very interesting for Martin to make note of. It shows any potential biases that the host could have in regards to Zuckerberg and Facebook.