New York Times columnist David Brooks has written a favorable piece praising online communities, such as Facebook Groups, in connection with the release of a study of the Groups feature partially funded by the social media giant, Buzzfeed News reported Friday.

In the piece, Brooks praises Facebook Groups as having a “tendency to subvert social hierarchies,” and says they seem to “create opportunities especially for non-dominant groups, people who might feel uncomfortable walking into an in-person meeting place.”

Brooks also says that Facebook Groups have created a new type of “online community leader,” the administrators who monitor the groups. “There are 70 million admins in the world today,” Brooks writes. “That’s 70 million community leaders, practicing their leadership in new and novel ways. Surely we should be focusing a lot of attention on these people, on helping them perform their role well.” Brooks also mentioned that Facebook is creating certification processes to help the group admins, and connecting them with “potentially revenue generating brands.”

In 2018, Brooks created Weave: The Social Fabric Project, a nonprofit that supports “hyperlocal community builders.” Weave is affiliated with the Aspen Institute, which receives funding from Facebook. A Facebook spokesperson told Buzzfeed that it has publicly disclosed its financial support for the Aspen Institute “for years,” and the Aspen Institute confirmed to Buzzfeed that Weave had received funding from Facebook.

Brooks said that the community leaders working with Weave “heavily rely on social media sites like Facebook to communicate with their communities, to deepen relationships, to do their work. I would say that they are suspicious of Facebook the corporation, but I’m struck by how often they are glowing about what they can do on Facebook with their neighbors.”

The Buzzfeed report says Brooks’ post raises questions of journalistic ethics. “Brooks’ ties to Facebook raise questions of conflicts of interest at the world’s most influential newspaper, and highlight how the social network is working to rehabilitate its brand after years of criticism and scrutiny for its roles in spreading conspiracy theories, fomenting hate, and influencing elections,” the Buzzfeed story says, pointing out that Facebook’s own internal research suggests that the Groups feature fosters polarization, radicalization, and misinformation.

Although Brooks, who is no stranger to controversial takes, acknowledged that studies have shown that “the rise in social media has been accompanied by a rise in depression, suicide, and political polarization,” he said that in recent years his mind has been changed by studies that “find surprisingly little or no correlation between social media uses and these social maladies [of depression, suicide and political polarization].”

When asked whether Brooks’ piece for Facebook and his connection to a group partially funded by Facebook violate any Times policies, a Times spokesperson provided Mediaite with the same statement provided to Buzzfeed.

“David was asked to respond to a research report and participate in a panel discussion in connection with his work with the Weave project, a nonprofit community-building effort connected to the Aspen Institute that David has worked with for several years,” the statement said. “The report was done by outside academics and he was given complete intellectual freedom to write and say what he thought. No compensation was involved.”

“David’s editors were not aware of the blog post or panel discussion,” the statement continues, “and they are discussing with him now what additional steps he might take to make sure that his work with the Weave project doesn’t create any appearance of conflicts with his Times journalism.”

The post David Brooks, NY Times Columnist and Founder of Facebook-Funded Nonprofit, Pens Blog for Facebook Praising Online Communities first appeared on Mediaite.

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