Under fire from series of scandals and fiascos Facebook has found itself in, Chief Operating Officer (COO) at the social media company, Sheryl Sandberg, has said the firm stands firmly against hate.
This is especially following accusations that Facebook played into an anti-Semitic narrative against Mr. George Soros, a Hungarian-American investor and philanthropist.
“Being Jewish is a core part of who I am and our company stands firmly against hate. The idea that our work has been interpreted as anti-Semitic is abhorrent to me — and deeply personal,” Sandberg said on Wednesday.
Facebook’s outgoing Head of Communications and Policy, Elliot Schrage, while sharing details about communications operations, said the social media giant hired Definers, a Washington DC PR firm, to do work on Mr. Soros.
“In January 2018, investor and philanthropist George Soros attacked Facebook in a speech at Davos, calling us a “menace to society”. We had not heard such criticism from him before and wanted to determine if he had any financial motivation. Definers researched this using public information.
“Later, when the “Freedom from Facebook” campaign emerged as a so-called grassroots coalition, the team asked Definers to help understand the groups behind them. They learned that George Soros was funding several of the coalition members.
“They prepared documents and distributed these to the press to show that this was not simply a spontaneous grassroots movement,” Schrage narrated.
He, however, stated that Facebook did not hire the Washington DC PR firm to create or distribute fake news, stressing that responsibility for decisions rests on him and that CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Sandberg relied on him to manage the communications team without controversy.
“I knew and approved of the decision to hire Definers and similar firms. I should have known of the decision to expand their mandate. Over the past decade, I built a management system that relies on the teams to escalate issues if they are uncomfortable about any project, the value it will provide or the risks that it creates. That system failed here and I’m sorry I let you all down. I regret my own failure here,” he said.
However, Sandberg took full responsibility for the communications team and their work and for the PR firms that work with Facebook.
“I truly believe we have a world class Comms team and I want to acknowledge the enormous pressure the team has faced over the past year. When I read the story in New York Times last week, I didn’t remember a firm called Definers.
“I asked our team to look into the work Definers did for us and to double-check whether anything had crossed my desk. Some of their work was incorporated into materials presented to me and I received a small number of emails where Definers was referenced.
“I also want to emphasize that it was never anyone’s intention to play into an anti-Semitic narrative against Mr. Soros or anyone else,” the Facebook COO said.