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After Initially Calling The New York Times' Report False, Facebook Confirms Most Claims Made in the Story (nytimes.com)
Nellie Bowles and Zach Wichter, reporting for The New York Times: 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.
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.
You're sorry you guys got caught, not that you were doing anything wrong. Please go cry me a river somewhere else.
Zuckerberg has a history of following the motto "it's easier to apologize than to ask permission". No one should be surprised when Facebook's initial response is childish denial instead of a factual explanation of events.
This is the typical response of a corporation: deny and obfuscate until caught with the pants down to the ankles. May more bad shit happen to Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook.
Saying that a negative story contains "a number of inaccuracies" is classic weasel-wording - attempting to give the appearance of denial without actually stating an outright falsehood (for which they could get sued, if the truth came out).
I didn't spend a whole lot of time reviewing the original Facebook statement, but I don't think they ever actually denied the central information in the Times report.
#DeleteChrome
Lies! All lies! . . . I have no knowledge of such action. . . . The persons responsible have been identified, and will be executed.
Sounds just like Saudi Arabia
too bad I already did. Now for those pesky "Like" icons everywhere...
Silicon Valley has this Janus-like political stance where they behave like caricatures of the most amoral greedy sociopathic businesspeople while ostentatiously parroting progressive dogma as if it somehow balances the whole thing out anywhere outside of their twisted little minds. The left happily and hypocritically ate it up while the negative aspects of their behavior were carefully hidden away, but now that the curtain has been pulled back the infighting has begun and now it's funny to watch.
This isn't a blanket condemnation of business or progressives (there are plenty of outstanding people and organizations in both areas), but representative politics has a horrible way of bending the path of humanity towards kakistocracy (government by the worst possible people).
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
“Whenever Roy (Cohn) wanted a story stopped or item put in, or story exploited, i.e (Gerradine) Ferraro—and her family, Roy called Murdoch.” When there is a story to be exploited, people usually call the Republican 'Definers'. It was the same in the 1980s as it is today. The 'Definers' of that era was people like Donald Trump's mentor, Roy Cohn. Roy Cohn enlisted his friend and the owner of the New York Post, Rupert Murdoch, to help bring down oppositions' narratives and character. And guess who was also working with Roy Cohn and Donald Trump in those days with these dirty tricks? - it was Roger Stone.
sometimes they do things that are harmful to the company.
This is just 1, but there are certainly hundreds of others yet to be uncovered.
But think of the 100,000+ other small decisions that people at facebook have done well for everyone.
They aren't perfect and will never be perfect, but they are doing something. Whether that is useful or not is debatable.
BTW, I don't use social media except as a research tool, never with my real name or real ideas. I don't trust any of them, especially google, FB, Tweeter, insta-whatever.
The entire Web 2.0 generation has been doing this with impunity, which is part of how they overcame the 1.0 guys who were naive and pushing some limits, but not generally flaunting the law, or the expectations of most of their userbase.
While geocities, myspace, infoseek, etc had their issues, most were not outright evil and amoral like the generation that replaced them (Excluding AOL, Time-Warner, SBC etc.)
Sandbagged Sheryl Sandberg needs a plan to gain control over what's actually happening in the company she runs, right under her nose.
Failure to execute such a plan means exactly what you think it means.
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
Protected Facebook's image all right, the image of moral bankruptcy.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Silicon Valley has this Janus-like political stance where they behave like caricatures of the most amoral greedy sociopathic businesspeople while ostentatiously parroting progressive dogma as if it somehow balances the whole thing out anywhere outside of their twisted little minds.
Money corrupts (some) people regardless of politics but in many cases corrupt people excel in business because they already are amoral greedy sociopathic people.
The real question is, how do stop corrupt behavior from benefiting? The correct answer is laws and regulations because you cannot force ethical behavior to occur but you can penalize unethical behavior.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Is anyone even the meat bit surprised? These guys have been crooks since day one.
Their lack of integrity should be treated as outright perjury. The government should revoke their corporate charter.
Yay, we have fun new term!
they confirmed the claims late on a Friday afternoon of a holiday weekend. Sorta like how Uber released a video that made it look pitch black at the time their car hit that woman and then a few weeks later it came out that the video was taken from a low light camera and there was plenty of visibility...
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Mark Zuckerberg, and the asshole corporation he founded, are based entirely on the premise that everything they say is a complete lie intended only to further their own goals.
Mark Zuckerberg is a lying sack of shit. That's what his entire empire is founded on, being a lying sack of shit.
So someone found out Mark Zuckerberg is a lying sack of shit, who paid some other lying sack of shit PR company to spread lies and disinformation about other people to distract people from him being a lying sack of shit, and then he further demonstrated himself to be a lying sack of shit by saying that Facebook would never do such a thing.
I'm sorry, but what part of Mark Zuckerberg and his company are serial lying sacks of shit isn't immediately obvious?
In all future instances where you find yourself thinking "gee, is Mark Zuckerberg and a lying sack of shit, and is his company a lying sack of shit", you need to stop and ask yourself if you really think you have counter examples to Mark Zuckerberg being a lying sack of shit.
The answer should pretty much be that if you think Mark Zuckerberg is a lying sack of shit, he probably is a lying sack of shit.
Fuck Zuck book.
Z's a sociopath, it is known. Let us hope that his wife and married life changes him over time, but I'm not holding my breath on this one. Married life has sort of changed MS's Bill.
That's some serious claim that representative democracy leads to kakistocracy. It's not perfect, but I'd love to hear if you have any ideas of what could be better. Kings and emperors tend to suck: there might be a few good ones, maybe even in a row, but the horrid ones eventually emerge and take everything down with them. True democracies also tends to dissolve quite quickly, even with severe limits on who can vote. Not everyone has the time to properly assess all the details of each and every political problem alongside a full time job.
Maybe you want a random ballot? Pick someone to lead at random? I'm not sure how that would be better either. I'm pretty sure the 'average joe' would do significantly worse than what we choose by representative voting. It's very similar to the problem with kings, and in this case you don't even have the training and education to help things along.
With but few exceptions, the US and other democracies have consistently chosen someone of above-average intelligence and above-average leadership to lead the country. While there has been some corruption and major scandals, the majority have taken pains to try and improve things for the country rather than focus only on their needs or desires. Compare with tin-pot dictators and banana republics, where though some may be representative democracies in name, most have very weak controls on their democracy and rampant corruption which interferes with the free vote or ability to run as a candidate. While some corruption occurs, and while it is important to point it out, it is gross hyperbole to say the US has reached anything close to that level so far. (Yes, EVEN under Trump/Nixon/Hillary/whoever your political boogeyman is).
I recommend plucking. One at a time.
Simple solution: Abolish all holidays!
They both just hate how they were caught. Try to bluff their way through. Can't wait for facebook to say it's all someone elses lies and not theirs.
Lie first, claim you remember it somewhere, lie again. Then change the topic.
When people show the proof of your lies, blame that person and try to claim they are a liar instead.
Admit nothing, deny everything, make counter accusations
Ahhh the trump strategy.
This is the typical response of $psychopath deny and obfuscate until caught with the pants down to the ankles.
gweihir KNOWS u IMPERSONATE me https://it.slashdot.org/commen... c6gunner proves it https://linux.slashdot.org/com... he forgot to SUBMIT as AC & using his registered 'lusrname' instead (because he tried to mock me both BEFORE & after I FAIRLY challenged him to show he's done better work - he had ZERO).
& NO WAY I'd "cry" like you "playing victim ne'er-do-wells" on /. (TROLL /.ers, not all) OR post on hosts offtopic.
YOU HELPED ME https://science.slashdot.org/c... (& you quit trying to make me look bad trying to "tell lies" on hosts as "ME" IN YOUR IMPERSONATIONS of me e.g. https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... as regards Intel speculative execution attack? Hosts PREVENT 'EM)
APK
P.S.=> I KNOW the 2nd to last link above's KILLING YOU - YOU ACTUALLY HELPED ME getting me to see if hosts stop more than portsmash (& Meltdown + Spectre too) & "lo & behold" - hosts WORK on 'em - U LOSE... apk
Why donâ(TM)t you just go full null-o?