Facebook Used Fake News and Propaganda to Discredit Critics After Multiple Scandals This Year

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg are seemingly stuck under the debris of a broken system for over a year. First, accusations of inaction inRussian meddling in the US presidential electionsand then the infamousCambridge Analytica data breachhave kept top executives busy.

But a newgroundbreaking and extensive reportby the New York Times shows how Facebook’s top brass sat on the heap of issues toavoid any controversy about favoritismtowards the Democratic Party.

Despite already knowing about the Russian interference as well the impact ofallegedly Kremlin-sponsored Facebook adsto help Donald Trump win the elections in 2016, Facebook decided to back off from taking action at the right time.

The company also refrained from removing Donald Trump’s Islamophobic comments in 2015 about a ban on Muslim immigrants into the US, using the excuse that his expressions are crucial to a democratic outcome the following year. There was quite a lot of debate on whether Trump should be banned, with Zuckerberg himself exploring options to eject the current US president and then candidate from Facebook.

Ironically, instead of trying to combat fake news on its platform, Facebook also reportedly deployed its own extensive propaganda machine to take aim at critics including billionaire, George Soros. This was in response to anti-Facebook protests gate-crashing Zuckerberg’s congressional hearing earlier this year. Facebook reportedly floated an antisemitic sentiment against the protestors who belonged to a group called “Freedom from Facebook”, and used a leading PR firm Definers Public Affairs to link Soros with these protests.

“Definers pressed reporters to explore the financial connections between Mr. Soros’s family or philanthropies and groups that were members of Freedom from Facebook“, says the NYT report.

At the same time, Sandberg reportedly led a “lobbying campaign” todeflect the blame for Russian intervention towards rival firmssuch as Twitter and Google.Image courtesy: CNBC

Recently, the company turned against Apple when the latter’s CEO Tim Cook reportedly said that Apple does not peddle user data like Facebook does (or did). In return,Zuckerberg ordered employees to give up on iPhones and use Android instead.Facebook has responded to this saying they only use Android because it’s the world’s most popular OS.

So far, 2018 seems like a distressing year for Facebook, and its fear of the current political ruling class seems to have frozen its decision making. The offensive post by Trump, as you can see, is still alive after three years and the social media company seems to be on a downhill path withstumbling stockandlack of confidenceamong employees.

Looks like Zuckerberg needs a realisticNew Year Resolutionin 2019.

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