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Facebook Reportedly Hired a PR Firm That Wrote Negative Articles About Rivals, Pushed George Soros Conspiracy Theory (cnbc.com) 149

Posted by BeauHD from the drastic-times-call-for-drastic-measures dept.
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.
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Facebook Reportedly Hired a PR Firm That Wrote Negative Articles About Rivals, Pushed George Soros Conspiracy Theory More

Facebook Reportedly Hired a PR Firm That Wrote Negative Articles About Rivals, Pushed George Soros Conspiracy Theory

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  • Come on (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    This is our new normal did anyone not notice yet? Take everything with a grain of salt and keep watching the boob tube

  • Silver lining (Score:1, Insightful)

    by PopeRatzo ( 965947 )

    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.

    • Re: Silver lining (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Fuck this shit. Who wants to stay up all night reading this crap? Die happier reading a textbook or watching cement dry

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      But news falsely claiming certain people are racists and misogynists are wide spread. I'd say fake news is doing just fine.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Yea, yea, everyone you don't like is literally Hitler. We get it.

    • Re:Silver lining (Score:4, Informative)

      by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Wednesday November 14, 2018 @10:59PM (#57646868) Homepage

      Racism, anti-semitism, and anti-immigrant hysteria just aren't getting the job done like they did in 2016.

      I'm not sure if this is sarcasm or not, because here in Florida the don't monkey this up [tampabay.com] candidate got more votes (and likely will be the winner if they ever finish counting ballots). Of course, I'm sure the line of thinking with most voters was "I don't mind voting for the guy the racists think is racist, so long as it keeps taxes low."

      It's also Florida being Florida, as usual.

      • It's also Florida being Florida, as usual.

        And there's your explanation, right there. But even in Florida, things are changing. Next election there will over a million people getting their voting rights restored against the wishes of Republicans. Things won't be so close next time.

        But the fact is, voter suppression still works, but now they have to get more and more brazen about it and it's actually turning some people off.

        • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

          by Terry Carlino ( 2923311 )

          Yep, if Democrats have anything to say about it all those dead people and non-citizens will be voting a storm up for Democratic candidates.

          I'm sure the poll workers will be working overtime stuffing ballots in their trunks for later use just in case a Republic actually gets enough votes to win.

      • Re: Silver lining (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        I looked up Gillum's policies, and as a European I'm baffled as how he could be described as far left, as in Europe he would be considered a solidly mainstream centrist. In fact his relatively strident pro-Christian views and gun control views might put him ever so slightly to the right.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          as a European I'm baffled as how he could be described as far left

          Considering the governmentally driven Overton Window-realignment underway in much of Europe where "right wing" has been relabeled "nazi", "left wing" has been replaced by "centrist", and "culturally suicidal redistributionist thought police" has been replaced by "liberal", I'm not shocked.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by dave420 ( 699308 )

            I bet that sounded marvellously edgy in your brain. On the screen it reads like the deranged mumblings of someone sleeping at a bus stop.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Shotgun ( 30919 )

          As an American, I would ask that you keep your European politics in Europe. We fought a war to shrug off your brand of smothering patriarchy. You do things your way. We'll do it ours.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Shotgun ( 30919 )

        You were wanting the overly-sensitive, triggered-by-common-phrase candidate to win, I take it.

    • 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.

      Huh? Racism and anti-semitism still work great for your key constituency, and with the thinly veiled "anti Israel" version for the rest of you.

    • Is the sky blue on the planet you live on?

  • Advertizing is the plague of the internet (Score:5, Insightful)

    by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Wednesday November 14, 2018 @09:54PM (#57646624) Journal
    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.
    • Best synopsis of the social media / web situation I've seen yet. I agree 1000%, well done.
    • There's something about the ad-supported internet that feels like a perpetual motion machine or a violation of the laws of thermodynamics. Somehow it seems like there's a weird subsidy or transfer of wealth involved from the real economy to the internet economy going on that cant possibly be sustainable. It's like aliens will visit Earth in 20 years and marvel at how the entire planet is dedicated to making and watching ads and the resources necessary to keep the internet turned on. Either that, or they

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Wikipedia manages.

      Yes, but Wikipedia is the biggest donation funded site and has a huge charity operation behind it. That model probably won't work for a lot of sites.

      If there was a way for people to easily contribute small amounts it might work. At the moment making a 10 cent donation is impossible online, the transaction fees kill it. Maybe there could be some kind of central tip handling org that member sites could register visits with to get a cut of a larger monthly donation, but it may be difficult to secure against fr

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by doom ( 14564 )

        Yes, but Wikipedia is the biggest donation funded site and has a huge charity operation behind it. That model probably won't work for a lot of sites.

        It's almost the only thing that does work. Think about it: advertising support sets up an adversarial relationship with the readers, and always threatens to undermine neutrality. Government support works as long as the government is reasonably enlightened, government supported media fails when you need it the most when the government is going bad. Subscrip

      • At the moment Patreon is showing it's possible for a large number of sites besides Wikipedia.

  • Just quit (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    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.

    • FAKE NEWS (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      "I guess they trust me. Dumb fucks."

      Don't sugarcoat the actual j00 quote, you cuck.

    • I don't understand why Americans keep tolerating Facebook.

      Freedom fries and freeze peach. Duh.

      With nuts.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Erm...You know that Facebooks user base is roughly 6 times the population of the US, right?

      I'm just confused as to why you say "Americans", as I, an American, do not use Facebook, but their user numbers are equivalent to everybody in North America, everybody in Europe and everybody in South America combined and you'd still end up short. Like, if every person in China and every person in India were counted, you'd be slightly over Facebooks user numbers.

      I get it, you don't like Americans, but if you think it

  • Is it time to go yet? (Score:4, Informative)

    by guygo ( 894298 ) on Wednesday November 14, 2018 @10:22PM (#57646724)
    Delete. Your. Accounts.
    • I second the motion.

    • Delete. Your. Accounts.

      Which won't happen, because people like their echo chambers. Facebook makes it easy to unfollow/block opinions that run counter to your own, and feed you more of what you want to hear.

    • i done did awhile ago. again, not the app. the entire fucking account. scorch that earth.
    • They should make not having a facebook account a requirement for voting. And possibly for buying groceries.

    • Sorry. I cannot.

    • Joined MeWe.com this morning. This was the last straw: they respond to criticism that they're destroying democracy by fanning fake anti-Semitic and anti-democratic conspiracies. Fuck them, I'm done.

  • This is basically to ensure Zuck's compliance with 2020 DNC election plans for the anointed heir to the throne. He likes freedom of speech and diversity of thought a little too much for their taste, so beatings will continue until compliance improves.

  • fake news **2 (Score:4, Funny)

    by astrofurter ( 5464356 ) on Thursday November 15, 2018 @12:38AM (#57647188)

    What if George Soros paid for this fake news article about George Soros paying for fake news articles??!

    • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

      by Terry Carlino ( 2923311 )

      George Soros isn't a liberal. He is a globalist. While many Progressive liberals have globalist leanings, Soros is a genuine market and money fund manipulating globalist. He uses money and influence to topple governments and seems to believe in and support not democracy but control of democratic institutions through influence pedaling and propaganda.

      He's one of a number of ultra-rich people who have accumulated wealth not for it's own sake or for the material possessions it can buy, but so he can control pe

      • One of those people you don't want as ally OR enemy.

        The best you can hope for is that his interests align with yours.

  • Conspiracy theories about everything else is OK.

  • 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.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      sad_ reminisced:

      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.

      That may or may not be true today. Tech journalism has become an open sewer of graft and shameless flackery, especially since the dead-pages advertising revenue drought began, but there were in the past, and there are still today, tech journalists who call them as they see them, and let the chips fall wherever they fall.

      (Not the Gizmodo people, of ccourse. They eagerly spread their jounalistic cheeks for any company that's willing to cross their palms - with no condom required.)

      Which is not

  • Time to join MeWe (Score:3)

    by storagedude ( 1517243 ) on Thursday November 15, 2018 @03:16PM (#57650484)
    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.

  • 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/ [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

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