Facebook admits they paid for pieces on George Soros to deflect criticism
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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/22/business/on-thanksgiving-eve-facebook-acknowledges-details-of-times-investigation.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes
Joining a long tradition of companies and campaigns that drop bad news on holidays, Facebook on Thanksgiving eve took responsibility for hiring a Washington-based lobbying
company, Definers Public Affairs, that pushed negative stories about Facebook’s critics, including the philanthropist George Soros.
Facebook’s communications and policy chief, Elliot Schrage, said in a memo posted Wednesday that he was responsible for hiring the group, and had done so to help protect the
company’s image and conduct research about high-profile individuals who spoke critically about the social media platform. Mr. Schrage will be leaving the company, a move planned
before the memo was released.
Facebook fired Definers last week, after a New York Times investigation published on Nov. 14. “Did we ask them to do work on George Soros?” Mr. Schrage wrote in the memo, a draft
of which had circulated online earlier in the week. “Yes.” He added: “I’m sorry I let you all down. I regret my own failure here.”
This is a change from just a few days ago, when Facebook wrote on Nov. 15 that the Times report was full of “inaccuracies.” The same day, Sheryl Sandberg, the company’s chief
operating officer, posted on her Facebook page that she had no idea the company had hired Definers.
“I did not know we hired them or about the work they were doing,” Ms. Sandberg said, adding, “I have great respect for George Soros.” But in the Thanksgiving eve memo, Ms. Sandberg
issued an about-face, acknowledging that the Republican-oriented company’s work had crossed her desk.
“Some of their work was incorporated into materials presented to me,” Ms. Sandberg wrote, ”and I received a small number of emails where Definers was referenced.”
Patrick Gaspard, the president of the Open Society Foundation, Mr. Soros’ philanthropic group, criticized the company for the timing of its statement and on Wednesday called
for independent, congressional oversight. Mr. Schrage’s memo was sent to Facebook employees on Tuesday. But he waited until Wednesday night to post it to the public.
Just nuke facebook off the internet.
So the company claiming to be fighting fake news has actually helped perpetuate and even create fake news.
How much you wanna bet that Facebook isn't actually fighting fake news?
Facebook is anarcho-capitalism at its finest (which is to say, the worst thing ever).
Silicon Valley*.
Just the idea of one source being the absolute arbiter of fake news had red flags all over it from the start.
it's almost like we can't trust corporations to do the right thing unless they're legally forced to
Doing good things is not profitable usually. Being a decent human being is a liability to the corporation.
those goddamned libertarians
They're not, otherwise they wouldn't have taken regulatory capture methods
Given how much they're profiting?
As much as I'd bet on water being wet.
That could have awful consequences. Imagine how every controversial or unpleasant piece of news would inevitably become flooded with disbelieve ratings.
You know, for being the guy that supposedly is at the center of EVERY leftist deep state conspiracy, Soros’ detractors sure do need to make up a lot of shit about him.
Its almost as if the people pushing this are full of fucking shit.
They tore apart the Bay Area economically and helped damage our country politically and culturally. I wish they'd be held accountable but that's never happening in the timeline of Trump and Reagan.
Oh they'll fight it all day long, just so long as it suits them, their interests, and even the personal biases of the individuals pulling the lever. This being all three.
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