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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
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.
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.)
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.
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.