>This story basically has no meat other than "the permissions API for contacts isn't granular enough" padded with casting aspersions on Apple, by the Facebook beat reporter.

I'm not defending the quality of the article, it's bad. And I think if the reasons you just listed were in your original comment, I would have upvoted it instead of viewing it as overly dismissive.

>I don't think the hurdle is "beyond a reasonable doubt" to say this was a Facebook Production given the context

For sure, the bar is low because the stakes are low. But a shitty writer and a need to inflate word count for the editor yields articles like this as well, no need for a PR conspiracy. I guess it depends a lot on how you feel about Hanlon's razor.