Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Facebook hired firm with 'in-house fake news shop' to combat PR crisis
Facebook hired firm with 'in-house fake news shop' to combat PR crisis
Facebook’s ties to Definers Public Affairs, first reported on Wednesday in The New York Times, sparked widespread criticism and accusations of hypocrisy.
The conservative lobbying firm that Facebook hired in the midst of an October 2017 public relations crisis about Russian disinformation included what one former employee told NBC News was an “in-house fake news shop” as part of its operations.
Facebook’s ties to the lobbying firm, Definers Public Affairs, were first reported on Wednesday in The New York Times, which detailed how the group aimed to “discredit activist protesters [of Facebook], in part by linking them to liberal financier George Soros,” who has become the subject of widespread right-wing conspiracy theories for his philanthropy work.
The report resulted in widespread criticism and accusations of hypocrisy by Facebook for its use of a lobbying firm that pushed narratives on behalf of its clients disguised as news articles. And some of the firm’s more inflammatory political ads for other clients were removed by Facebook itself for violating its advertising policies.
... snip
The revelation highlights how public relations firms like Definers have been able to move beyond efforts to seed stories in the press on behalf of their clients and can now promote their own articles on Facebook in the guise of news, just as Russia promoted misinformation and divisive political rhetoric through disguised media publications. And now it turns out that Facebook was not just the platform for this kind of opposition work, but had actually hired a practitioner to do so on its behalf.
More: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/facebook-hired-firm-house-fake-news-shop-combat-pr-crisis-n936591?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma
Facebook’s ties to Definers Public Affairs, first reported on Wednesday in The New York Times, sparked widespread criticism and accusations of hypocrisy.
The conservative lobbying firm that Facebook hired in the midst of an October 2017 public relations crisis about Russian disinformation included what one former employee told NBC News was an “in-house fake news shop” as part of its operations.
Facebook’s ties to the lobbying firm, Definers Public Affairs, were first reported on Wednesday in The New York Times, which detailed how the group aimed to “discredit activist protesters [of Facebook], in part by linking them to liberal financier George Soros,” who has become the subject of widespread right-wing conspiracy theories for his philanthropy work.
The report resulted in widespread criticism and accusations of hypocrisy by Facebook for its use of a lobbying firm that pushed narratives on behalf of its clients disguised as news articles. And some of the firm’s more inflammatory political ads for other clients were removed by Facebook itself for violating its advertising policies.
... snip
The revelation highlights how public relations firms like Definers have been able to move beyond efforts to seed stories in the press on behalf of their clients and can now promote their own articles on Facebook in the guise of news, just as Russia promoted misinformation and divisive political rhetoric through disguised media publications. And now it turns out that Facebook was not just the platform for this kind of opposition work, but had actually hired a practitioner to do so on its behalf.
More: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/facebook-hired-firm-house-fake-news-shop-combat-pr-crisis-n936591?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma
4 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
