Just what they're doing now - serving as the medium for conscientious journalists and other concerned individuals to publish accounts of the bullshit going on in their corner of the world. Anonymity is tough, but it can be attained for such purposes. Such techniques should not be the responsibility of Facebook. And yes, anonymity tends to dampen credibility, so there's a balancing act to be performed if one wants to avoid the violent response of the corrupt little men being exposed, but let us give thanks that there there are those willing to take such risks for the sake of truth.

What is this "competitor" thing that you speak of?

You forgot the sarcasm tags, there, Skippy. Surely, you aren't seriously suggesting that all the crimes that the NSA and their colleagues in the intelligence and law enforcement communities are guilty of are not at least as dangerous as Russia and China's economic "threats". Right?

Piss off, you mere citizen. If you're not a corporate citizen, you're little people, and little people don't have the same rights as corporate citizens. We will tell you what you can do with your property, and you'll like it, because the bread and circuses will continue to flow.

TFTFY
...and, no shit. Put down the iPhone, you little dorks and recognize that the world still communicates verbally, sometimes using a feature that your magic text box has actually had from the start. It's efficacy at communicating useful information larger than something like "lol" is unparalleled when compared to the other shitty input devices on mobile devices.

TFTFY
Internally, our company uses several different mechanisms for securely transferring sensitive documents, all of which are superior to fax in speed and reliability, but we interact with hundreds of other businesses that refuse to abandon this mid-last-century technology for the same job.

You were doing fine up until the point where you equated religious faith with scientific hypothesis. The two are alike in only the most superficial way. They are unalike in the most important ways. Only a fool would fail (or refuse) to note such distinctions.

If I observe that you seem to not understand the definition of ad hominem, I am not engaging in an ad hominem attack. Likewise, if I observe that a particular observation is "daft", it is the observation I've addressed, not the observer.
You are an idiot, and your mother dresses you funny. There. Now that was an ad hominem attack.

[citation needed]
We keep hearing this. Please substantiate your assertion.

Because the list of things she knows clearly does not include the concept of "community based threat intelligence". The sharing of threat intel, especially among industry peers (financial services, healthcare, etc.) can be a very powerful tool. If the security people at Acme Widgets and Cogswel Cogs alert me that their seeing a specific attack coming from a particular IP address, we here at Spacely Sprockets can proactively take steps to defend against that attack.

FTFA:
"Opening debate of the bill on Wednesday, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, noted that the legislation “does not provide the government with any new surveillance authorities.” “It only authorizes the sharing of cyber threat indicators and defensive measures – technical information like malware signatures and malicious code,” he said. “In fact, before companies share with the federal government, they must remove all personal information that might be attached to cyber threats. If companies don’t follow those requirements, they will not receive liability protection.”

By what stretch does Ms. Cohn call such activity "surveillance"?

No. You do not "need" to do those things anymore than the dozens of fuckwits I see every day driving, walking, eating, pissing, with their heads bowed down to their smart phone "need" to communicate in such an awkward medium. Do those services make certain things easier? Of course, but that's the deal - "Here's your 'easy', now give me your life. Oh, and fuck your privacy." That, my friend is "the real world".

See, there's your problem. You don't believe it's an opinion piece unless the broadcaster is honest enough to say it is.

Perhaps not news, but as a topic worthy of consideration and discussion, you bet. Consider Fox News. It's veracity and accuracy are so poor that almost an entire industry has been built up around calling "bullshit" on so many of their "facts", and yet millions of viewers rely on it to help build their world-view every day. Those ratings wouldn't be there without Fox's heavy emphasis on "stories that people love to believe". Frankly, I find such phenomena fascinating, and often more than a little troubling. Before the chocolate hoax was the whole anti-vaxer phenomenon. To this day, otherwise reasonable people cling to the notion that routine childhood vaccinations are a bad idea, despite overwhelming credible evidence to the contrary and the plain fact that the notion itself was spawned by miscreant for personal gain. Why do they choose to believe bullshit in the face of plainly evident truth? What should we do about it? Can we do anything about it? Should we? It's excellent grist for the discussion mill, IMO.

Utter bullshit. The welfare of the citizens affected is not really a consideration to anyone with a dog in this fight. Let's get that part right, at least.
Everyone knows that it's a powerful telecommunications lobby flexing it's muscle in a state where there are lots federal dollars being spent on that industry's services. You don't piss off the industry who paid for your last election, be that for local, state, or federal office, so the whole argument about who has the "right" to look out for those citizens is nothing more than a deliberate distraction for the suckers (voters) who continue to act against their own best interests by electing Big Telco's whores to public office.