FB tried to discredit opponents

New York, Nov. 16: Already under scrutiny for its role in the 2016 US presidential elections, Facebook now finds itself dragged into another controversy for its attempts to muzzle the voices of its critics.

New York Times has reported that the social media behemoth hired a PR firm to portray the company’s critics as agents of billionaire George Soros, a Jewish philanthropist who is the frequent subject of antisemitic conspiracy theories. Hungary-born octogenarian Soros is a major funder of liberal and prodemocratic causes.

In a damning report, NYT said Facebook resorted to aggressive attempts to undermine critics. It said Facebook increasingly turned to Definers Public Affairs, a Washington DC-based political consultancy founded by Republican operatives for the operation.

Definers’ tactics was simple: to publish negative reports about other tech companies, including Google and Apple in a site which looks like a news site though it is actually run by the PR company itself.

Other conservative sites would then pick them up so that attention from the misdeeds of Facebook would get distracted.

The PR form also sought to cast Soros as the driving force behind groups critical of Facebook; it even went on to circulate a research document connecting Soros to “a broad anti-Facebook movement”.

The anti-Soros conspiracy mongering reached a fever pitch in the weeks before the midterm elections, as conservative politicians and news outlets advanced allegations that he was behind a caravan of Central American migrants traveling through Mexico. Soros was one of the targets of a rash of mail bombs that were sent to critics of Donald Trump in October.

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.