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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
“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.
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.
I don't see how anyone can see billionaire tech bros as "the left". Their entire philosophy and business model is "leech off the many, for the few". That's about as far from socialism as you can get.
Of course they don't care if you're gay, have an abortion, are in a minority or are from another country; to them everyone is just a resource to further their own wealth and power. If they can parlay their indifference into some good PR then of course they will, but if it helps them they will not hesitate to treat anyone like shit; just because they do it indiscriminately doesn't make them progressive.
Zuck has always been an a-moral toerag; whatever belief or allegiance he professes is only what he thinks will reflect best on him.
You and the OP seem to be confused about the difference between Liberal and Left. It's easy to be confused because often (especially in the US but also in the UK) the two are talked of as being the same thing, but they aren't.
It is perfectly possible to highly socially liberal (pro gay marrage for example) but also very capitalistic.
Former Tory PM David Cameron would be a good example of this. Under his government, Gay marriage was legalised in the UK. The tories are very very pro capitalist (they have privatised just about everything). Maggie Thatcher is still worshiped by many in the Tory party who voted for gay marriage. This political position best represents the likes of Zuckerberg.
You can also want to nationalise stuff but be anti-immigration. I would say that UKIP are probably an example of this. Their economic policies have seen to be designed to attract working class voters in the North (traditionally left wing voters for economic reasons) but who are more socially Conservative (anti-immigration in this example).
I'm a big fan of the political compass https://www.politicalcompass.org/ to explain this, give it a look.