Julia Carrie Wong - Facebook reportedly discredited critics by linking them to George Soros
Soros has been openly critical of Facebook and Google. “The internet monopolies have neither the will nor the inclination to protect society against the consequences of their actions,” he said in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January. “That turns them into a menace and it falls to the regulatory authorities to protect society against them
Robinson, whose organization has run online campaigns criticizing Facebook over racial discrimination in housing ads, privacy and surveillance, racist hate speech, and other issues, said he was deeply troubled by the report. “This narrative has really dangerous antisemitic undertones about Jewish people controlling the world,” Robinson told the Guardian by phone. “
Facebook hired a PR
firm that attempted to discredit the company’s critics by claiming they were
agents of billionaire George Soros, the New
York Times reported Tuesday. Soros is a Jewish
philanthropist who is the frequent subject
of antisemitic conspiracy theories. At the same time, the social media
company urged the Anti-Defamation League to object to a cartoon used by
anti-Facebook protesters over its resemblance to antisemitic tropes. News of Facebook’s
aggressive attempts to undermine critics came in a damning report by
the Times, detailing how Facebook executives have struggled to manage the
numerous and severe challenges confronting the company, all while lashing out
at critics and perceived enemies.
Rashad Robinson, the
executive director of one of the groups targeted by the PR campaign, Color of
Change, called the antisemitic smear “outrageous and concerning”. Amid growing pressure
from lawmakers over its role in Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, Facebook
increasingly
turned to Definers Public Affairs, a Washington DC based political consultancy
founded by Republican operatives and specializing in opposition research,
according to the report.
One of Definers’
tactics was to publish dozens of negative articles about other tech companies,
including Google and Apple, in order to try to distract attention from
Facebook’s public relations woes. Definers published the content on
NTKNetwork.com, a website that looks like a news site but is actually run by
the PR firm. The narratives pushed on NTK Network were often picked up by
conservative sites such as Breitbart. Another tactic was to
cast Soros as the driving force behind groups critical of Facebook... read more:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/nov/14/facebook-george-soros-pr-firm-discredit-critics-crisis
