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Facebook Reportedly Hired a PR Firm That Wrote Negative Articles About Rivals, Pushed George Soros Conspiracy Theory (cnbc.com)
According to a recently-published report in the New York Times, Facebook hired a public relations firm last year that wrote dozens of articles critical of rivals Google and Apple and pushed the idea that liberal financier George Soros was behind a growing anti-Facebook movement. "Facebook expanded its relationship with Definers Public Affairs in October 2017 after enduring a year's worth of external criticism over its handling of Russian interference on its social network," CNBC summarizes. From the report: The firm reportedly wrote articles that blasted Google and Apple while downplaying the impact of Russian interference on Facebook. Those articles were published on NTK Network, an affiliate of the firm whose content is often followed by politically conservative outlets, including Breitbart, the report says. Definers Public Affairs also reportedly pressed reporters to explore Soros' financial connections with groups that protested Facebook at Congressional hearings in July.
Facebook's relationship with Definers Public Affairs were outlined as part of a broader report that looked at the company's handling of numerous scandals over the past three years, including Russian interference and the Cambridge Analytica scandal in March. Other revelations in the report include Sheryl Sandberg's apparent fury when former security chief told the board of directors in fall 2017 about the full extent of Russian interference on the platform, and Mark Zuckerberg ordering managers to use Android phones after Apple CEO Tim Cook criticized the company's approach to privacy earlier this year.
Facebook's relationship with Definers Public Affairs were outlined as part of a broader report that looked at the company's handling of numerous scandals over the past three years, including Russian interference and the Cambridge Analytica scandal in March. Other revelations in the report include Sheryl Sandberg's apparent fury when former security chief told the board of directors in fall 2017 about the full extent of Russian interference on the platform, and Mark Zuckerberg ordering managers to use Android phones after Apple CEO Tim Cook criticized the company's approach to privacy earlier this year.
This is our new normal did anyone not notice yet? Take everything with a grain of salt and keep watching the boob tube
The good news is that fake stories and conspiracy theories aren't working so well any more. Racism, anti-semitism, and anti-immigrant hysteria just aren't getting the job done like they did in 2016.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Facebook should hire apk to write public relations for them, that would probably improve their standing.
PR firms do this kind of thing, it's basically expected for them to lie and deceive as much as legally possible.
Advertizing is the a deep poison that ruins many things on the internet. Email was a great idea (and still is).....but spam made it almost intolerable for years. Now we've reduced the email spam problem to a tolerable level (by removing open relays and centralizing our mail servers, which is a sad thing), but the problem of advertizing has infected the entire rest of the web. Why does fake news get written? Because you can make a profit off it. If it weren't for profit, then Breitbart would not exist.
Some people argue that without advertizing, some things couldn't be supported financially. I counter that those things probably aren't worth having around anyway, if people aren't willing to toss a few dollars a year their way to cover hosting. Wikipedia manages. Subscription services like Netflix would still be able to exist.
It is therefore a moral obligation to use ad blocker: to help make the internet a better place. Since ads contain malware, it is not just the morally correct thing to do, it is also the practical and most reasonable thing to do.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I don't understand why Americans keep tolerating Facebook. The founder Zuckerberg literally said, "I don't know, they trust me with their data, idiots."
Does every American have a gun to their head to use Facebook? No? Then delete that shit.
A quality think tank would make sure you can't tell it's from a think tank.
Delete. Your. Accounts.
The guy posting all this political crap with a faint hint of computers is a retard who is ruining this website.
You don't get it, do you. Facebook is a tech company, one of the most influential. Why? Because people are dumb shit, that's why. They trust facebook the same way my parents trusted the printed newspaper.
If you can't see how this is News for Nerd, Stuff that Matters, I posit that you are one of the ones ruining this site.
Tech has become politicized. Deal with it. Don't ignore it.
Still don't get it? OK I'll spell out out, let me know if you need pictures, too: Facebook is just another way to manipulate public opinion, but is much more insidious than print ever was.
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
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What if George Soros paid for this fake news article about George Soros paying for fake news articles??!
"I guess they trust me. Dumb fucks."
Don't sugarcoat the actual j00 quote, you cuck.
Conspiracy theories about everything else is OK.
Heroes die once, cowards live longer.
Notwithstanding whatever you think about the report's credibility, the George Soros Foundation took it seriously, it seems. https://gizmodo.com/george-sor...
What is it about Soros and the alt-right? I mean why Soros in particular? I've got some alt-right acquaintances (hey, they weren't that way when we were kids) who seem singularly obsessed with the guy. Is it because he's rich and Jewish? Why Soros in particular?
Soros isn't just trying to promote some ideas that threaten their rhetoric if successful (and since it's usually what the people affected want, it's easy to be successful), he also has the money to back it up. That's pretty unique and makes him a very important target.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
He's an opportunist. Not just in name like me.
I can understand his position, though. That money would be taken from the Jews. That was a fact. The only thing he could influence was whether it goes to another Jew.
You can justify it that way for yourself. Just as you can justify killing the Jews because if you didn't do it, someone else would have.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
many, many years ago there was an article on /. about the fact that each time you read a tech article that is negatieve about a technology or tech company, there is a marketing firm behind it hired by a competitor.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
Easily disprovable how? In the video from the link he says exactly what the script says, aside from the last 4 lines. and how would it be anti-semetic?
No evidence of those but we all know the stories--- they must be in a conspiracy to hide the evidence.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I know. If I had a dollar for every time someone said Opinion X or Movement Y weren't real, they were paid actors bought by Soros to pretend to believe what they were saying, why, I'd be as rich as Soros.
Curiously, none of those people ever accept the counter-suggestion that conservative billionaires could be paying actors to pretend to believe conservative talking points. Only Soros's money is magically powerful in ways that other people's money is not.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
I've been considering dumping Facebook and FB-owned Instagram for a while. This finally pushed me over the edge - they respond to criticism that they're destroying democracy by fanning vile, anti-Semitic and anti-democratic conspiracies. Fuck them, I joined MeWe.com today.
I wish you'd used some words and not just shared a link. I don't know what part of my comment that article is trying to address, refute, or whatever.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
Was waiting for someone to call BS, who am I to change public opinion. I'm on record posting when Microsoft stole data from everybody who installed GWX (Early 4/2015) nothing happened about it, hell I was kicked off https://www.sevenforums.com/ over it.
Just after Facebook hit the fan, fingers were pointed at Google and their privacy practice for a short while then blow over and it happen again, time after time. Google should be proud of their practice, and people who don't see that deserve facebook.
Those what we collect on each website now expressing their privacy policy, yep have facebook to thank for that.
Facebook's sin is showing what one could get away with.
I think people greatly overestimate Facebook's ability to manipulate public opinion. Facebook influences the public opinion by letting people divide themselves far further and deeper that they would have otherwise but that is the nature of Facebook, not something it controls.
it has nothing to do with him being Jewish
It's a variation of the old "Jews control all governments" canard.
Bill Gates doesn't threaten the status quo.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.