Shocking NYT Expose Reveals Facebook’s Scramble To Label Liberal Critics Soros-Operatives While Trashing Google And Apple
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Thu, 11/15/2018
The New York Times has painted a 5,300 word picture of an out-of-control Facebook’s desperate and incompetent damage control measures in the wake of multiple scandals.
Based on interviews with over 50 current and former company executives, lawmakers, government officials, lobbyists and congressional staff members – most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity – the Times illustrates how Facebook resorted to mercenary tactics when it came to combatting criticism over everything from Russian ad-spending during the 2016 US election, to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, to the platform’s blind eye towards corrupt governments using the social network to commit atrocities around the world.
as evidence accumulated that Facebook’s power could also be exploited to disrupt elections, broadcast viral propaganda and inspire deadly campaigns of hate around the globe, Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Sandberg stumbled. Bent on growth, the pair ignored warning signs and then sought to conceal them from public view. -NYT
In one instance, COO Sheryl Sandberg was “seething” after Facebook’s former security chief, Alex Stamos, informed the board of directors that the company had not contained the “Russian infestation.” The admission resulted in a “humiliating boardroom interrogation of Ms. Sandberg,” who was livid that Stamos’s admission had exposed the company legally (as opposed to ignoring or covering up the issue).
And after a failed charm offensive – including an attempt to make CEO Mark Zuckerberg more likeable and less robotic – Facebook “went on the attack.” After the left began to blame the company’s lax oversight of Russian ad spending for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 election loss, Facebook hired a GOP opposition-research firm “to discredit activist protesters, in part by linking them to the liberal financier George Soros.”
In October 2017, Facebook also expanded its work with a Washington-based consultant, Definers Public Affairs, that had originally been hired to monitor press coverage of the company. Founded by veterans of Republican presidential politics, Definers specialized in applying political campaign tactics to corporate public relations — an approach long employed in Washington by big telecommunications firms and activist hedge fund managers, but less common in tech.
Definers had established a Silicon Valley outpost earlier that year, led by Tim Miller, a former spokesman for Jeb Bush who preached the virtues of campaign-style opposition research. -NYT‘
The Rest…HERE
