Two recent failures that really make it clear that Facebook is not improving fast enough: 1) recently disclosed evidence of Russian interference in last month’s election and 2) Russia’s successful disinformation campaign via Facebook-owned WhatsApp in last month’s Brazilian election. This company NEEDS to be reformed by law. With Zuckerberg’s failure to address it on his own and his 60% ownership preventing corporate governance, it’s going to have to be legal governance. It will be a blunt instrument and will be that is a shame for shareholders but it is needed.
6
Am I actually supposed to believe that Zuckerberg and Sandberg didn't know the specifics of what a public relations firm was doing on behalf of Facebook?
8
This is one of those articles when finished reading it you slap your forehead and say "what is wrong with these people". Aside from undermining democracy, selling people's most private information, they are fueling antisemitism and only quit after getting caught. FB has touted itself as being the solution of connecting people when actually FB is the problem of selling people out.
10
I guess we already knew that these are awful people, but it's good to have the details of their evil anti semitic blame shifting so we know we're dealing with a propaganda machine, not a social network.
8
I closed my Facebook account a long time ago. One of the smartest things I’ve ever done. They abuse privacy; they abuse democracy; they abuse the truth. When they’re finished, they lie about it. Really, despicable.
7
Every Facebook apology and explanation over the years has turned out to be insincere, incomplete, and misleading. So the information in this article is revelatory, but not really surprising. And deceit is built into the business model, including the use of the Facebook Pixel to track users across the web—the whole point of the Pixel is that it can't be blocked by browsers or deleted like web cookies. The business model is fundamentally corrupt. Which is unnecessary. FB would still be worth tens of billions if it stuck to contextual ads, just not hundreds of billions.
6
@Jake Roberts Actually, the basic pixel technology has been around for a long time and is used by hundreds if not thousands of companies and it works by writing a third party cookie. So it can be blocked and deleted and I think it's your responsibility to do both. I use ublock origin, it's easy, it works, it's fast and community supported (in particular, the author doesn't maintain any block lists, hence he's unlikely to create a creepy Adblock like business model) but there are alternatives, like Privacy Badger, which has the EFF stamp of approval. There are other ways in which people can be identified (canvas fingerprinting, browser details) but there is no reason not to block all trackers and third party cookies for a start. It's an arms race, make it hard on them. Spreading unfounded pessimism is not helpful.
3
How ironic to recall that hard right pundits and politicians for months have been decrying FB et al social media for curtailment of conservative voices, in light of the news that FB itself has been funding anti-Soros messages about liberal activists.
5
@Lou Anne Leonard - The squeaky wheel gets the oil.
FB is a big business, with not much difference from Exxon or Goldman Sachs. They have the power to play hardball with customers and suppliers, and the clout to manipulate politicians. They’re going to use that power.
They surely have a corporate PR planning department. That department surely makes guesses about how far they can go in each situation and get away with it. Those guesses haven’t been very good lately. They seriously underestimated the backlash against the recent political shenanigans. Now their execs complain that their security people threw them “under the bus.” But it’s PR planning who really let them down.
They don’t want to spend the money to hire conscientious people to vet the ads they sell, whether for discriminatory hiring or political deception: it’s not “scalable” to monitor those kinds of thing. (Meaning: lower profit margins, less money in their pockets.)
In the US we should be grateful for Europe’s recent data privacy regulations. They provide a much-needed check that our society cannot provide.
10
Think of how wonderful social media could be if it were ad-free, run by the US Postal Service, and cost 40 cents per post.
6
Whether you look at Facebook, the NY Times, Fox News, WSJ, or hit one of those click baits like Outbrain, people need to learn judgement. Facebook can be an effective communication tool, but be careful with the information you share and be skeptical of what you read. I just do not buy the story that Facebook is so much more nefarious than other major corporations.
I have reconnected with friends and participated in activities that I am not sure would have happened without Facebook.
1
@CC - With due care, you can avoid setting your house on fire. But if the whole town is burning, you're in trouble.
1
Facebook has been caught with it's pants down. Again.
And it is the world that has to pay the price while facebook milks the billions with unethical practices bordering on illegal.
7
I deleted my Facebook account about eight months ago and highly recommend it. While I occasionally miss out on news from friends and family, I feel a lot better knowing that Zuck and Sandberg can no longer use my information for their nefarious purposes.
9
"Top Facebook executives including Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg were not aware of the specific work being done by Definers, the person said."
Whether they had actual knowledge is irrelevant (although I'm not sure how plausibly deniable that knowledge is).
The buck stops with Zuckerberg.
15
John Lyly, 1579: "the rules of fair play do not apply in love and war."
Of course that was a work of literature. But today, that seems to apply and to much more than before:
--all's fair in national politics
--all's fair in local politics
--all's fair in quashing journalist that ask hard questions
--all's fair in smearing sexual abuse victims if it means stacking a Supreme Court... who needs a blindfold on justice anyways?!
--all's fair in falsely painting asylum seekers as "illegals" that are bloodthirsty criminals and middle-eastern terrorists
--all's fair in corporations smearing the rest of the world as evil doers in order to make sure they make outrageous profits year over year (FB earns billions $ and has 35% profit margins...but I guess that's not enough)
--all's fair in banks duping people into accepting mortgages that eventually become unaffordable, thereby 'causing a global financial crisis, in order to make more money.
-all's fair in making people believe that human caused climate change is a hoax, in order to continue letting Exxon and their ilk make big profits.
--all's fair in saying that Nazi's have 'good people' on their side too, so long as it helps you keep power.
Guess Melania's jacket is the new gospel: She really doesn't care. Do you?
13
Free Markets. The Market Place will take care of Facebook. If you don't like the product don't use it. If you are offended by Facebook's practices close down your account. This is tragically simple.
The NYT is upset because they're beginning to realize the Public/users of Facebook don't care. I'm personally offended by some of the content in the NYT on a daily basis. I'm also offended by some of what I see on Facebook. I'm offended by the NYT Editorial Board and the Editors at the NYT. I continue to read the NYT every day.
I have had little or no respect for Zuckerberg and Sandberg right from the start.
I thought it was ridiculous when the NYT put Sandberg up on a pedestal for her Lean In propaganda.
I'm Consistently Disappointed with People & Institutions - that's life.
When they commit a crime lock them up.
3
Libertarian "values"....the reason we need regulation.
7
Among other nastiness revealed by excellent reporting, one thing will probably be overlooked. FB basically supports censorship when it's good PR.
Look at this low-effort response:
"Sex Trafficking Legislation: Sheryl championed this legislation because she believed it was the right thing to do, and that tech companies need to be more open to content regulation where it can prevent real world harm. In fact, the company faced considerable criticism as a result."
Content regulation? Oh, really? But I guess Sheryl really had strong feelings about this...
Note that the bill was opposed by other tech companies and the ACLU because of its censorship implications and the burden it could place on sites/apps now liable for any trafficking their services might facilitate..
It also hurt sex workers.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/23/business/craigslist-personals-trafficking-bill.html
https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/congress-proposes-fight-online-trafficking-harming-sex-workers
6
@Mike - As the law stands now it is not "censorship" for a company to edit content as they see fit. They are still not legally liable for content that they don't edit.
Of course the court of public opinion - e.g. you - is free to hold any opinion. However it is not legally binding.
In all of this, it should be clear that Facebook has essentially democratized what the most powerful governments and the most powerful multinational corporations have always done: propagandize, manipulate, disrupt, and corrupt—and then "delay, deny, and deflect." This longstanding mode of operation is all well and good as long as only these most powerful governments and multinational corporations are able to do it. And this has been "democracy"—as defined by them, through all of these same practices. But now that much less powerful governments and businesses are engaging in these same practices, through Facebook, there is a "crisis," not only within Facebook, but also (as these reports show) throughout the nation and across the globe.
This is fully reminiscent of the 1960's, when, according to these same powerful players at the top, there was a "crisis of democracy"—because democracy was spreading to segments of society that previously were not engaged in it, and in fact, as the "crisis" demonstrated, were not supposed to be engaged in it.
So here and now, Facebook is being used by the much less powerful as the tool that was once only available to the most powerful people to control the globe—and not surprisingly, these less powerful people are using this tool in the same way that it has been used on them all along.
2
@Tom Wilde, except that's not the problem. The powerful and twisted are sending prepackaged and targeted propaganda to people predisposed to believe it. Those people are doing the dissemination so it makes it harder to trace the source. Got it? That's not democratization. Its the opposite.
5
Corporate governance lesson 1: never ever engage a communications or lobbying firm whose principals regard the job as one of manipulating public opinion, as opposed to informing the public. Such firms may be recognized at a distance by their ties to conservative politics.
11
@M., except that's what they all do. Better to be transparent and accountable rather than hiding behind weaponized social media sent by an army of unwitting trolls. Thanks Facebook.
1
Excellent article. I find it deeply disturbing. Even if Facebook did nothing illegal by hiring Definers, at the very least, it is a very poor strategic move by the company. There is simply no substitute for objectivity and transparency - these are the building blocks of a solid control and governance strategy. By hiring a company that was "Founded by former Romney-Ryan 2012 campaign manager Matt Rhoades and former RNC Research Director Joe Pounder", Facebook has showed very poor judgment. The consulting industry is mature and has dozens of firms that are lead by well-trained and objective consultants. Badly done Facebook. And NYT - kudos for exposing Facebook's poor strategy.
13
The easy solution, people: DELETE your Facebook accounts as completely and quickly as possible. If you don't, you're as gullible as Zuckerberg and Sandberg are guilty.
11
I did exactly that after I saw the two-part Frontline episode about Facebook last week. Highly recommended.
9
Facebook should double down.
They're behaving as if what they have done is illegal. They have not been charged with any wrongdoing. This Guilty until Proven Innocent garbage has gone on long enough (this is the real crime). They mine data from people who use their free product. They are a business.
4
Boy FB can give MBS a run for his money in terms of denials and deniability at the upper levels!
5
Is this enough, given how much damage they have done? Genocide, subverting democratic elections, violating user privacy...the list goes on.
7
If this is true I hope Soros is able to get some legal consequences applied to this company for makung false accusations.
7
Mr. Miller surely knew the audience he was targeting to when he decided to throw George Soros’s name into the mix as a means to distracting attention from Facebook’s problems. George Soros has been made out to be the Boogieman by a number of unscrupulous conspiracy theorists who have been shockingly effective at getting countless Americans to believe their nonsense. I now even hear Republicans in Congress invoking Soros’s name as a means to riling up that portion of their voters. Fiction has become fact in the Republican Party and Mr. Miller played on that history of disgusting behavior directed at Soros when he chose to bring up his “facts” about Soros funding of groups that happened to be opposing Facebook. Miller knew what he was doing at the time. It wasn’t about “facts” it was a “dog whistle.” Shame on Miller.
13
Facebook is, and always has been a terrible company. Regulate it or break it up. It's clearly taken its online social media manipulation tools to our dimwitted Congress.
Schumer is such a obvious phony.
9
This articles doesn't have sources and relies so much on an simplified and black and white interpretation of what those guys would have thought that it is no better than any internet meme that's posted on facebook for the purpose of generating outrage.
This is not journalism, you guys, the nyt readers should realize that.
1
@pierre Couldn't agree more. This article is a perfect example of water seeking its own level. We have had more examples of such things since the 2016 election that it is absolutely mindboggling. Everybody wants to swim in the swamp now.
1
"Late Wednesday, Facebook decided to terminate its relationship with Definers after the publication of the Times article prompted an outcry, said a person familiar with the matter, who was not authorized to speak publicly. Top Facebook executives including Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg were not aware of the specific work being done by Definers, the person said."
Clearly a controlled "the person said" leak--front page of NYT is not "publicly"? Seems they're still playing our Sovietized media. Good for them. What the Russians were accused of doing via FB. Justice?
1
So, where is the substantive US economy, really?
So tired of all this fluff.
FaceBook creates no value -- it just helps advertisers push ads into users' eyeballs. No cure for cancer there. No solution for climate change. no housing for the homeless.
Just "Likes" -- big deal.
And Amazon -- why am I not surprised that it picked the US financial center, NYC, where all the capitalists hang out, like Goldman Sachs, and Washington DC, where all the politicians hang out. Amazon pillaged the retail businesses of small town America -- and what is it giving back? Nothing.
And Apple, shipped all of its manufacturing jobs to China -- and what is China doing now, spending these billions on expanding its military -- now matching what the US spends. Thanks Apple! For what, these little screens in our kids' hands -- addicting them, making the next generation incapable of speaking to a real person in person.
Meanwhile, health care costs are soaring -- why? Because the rest of the economy is all fluff. No one is making anything real. And without something real, there is nothing of comparable value to pay for the health care bill.
You cannot pay your ICU nurse with bitcoin, or more "likes" or more Twitter followers.
And speaking of Twitter -- our Tweety-Bird in Chief is clueless on how to truly lead the world. He thinks its all about running a MAGA rally. Big deal. House of Cards is too good a word for this government -- at least Cards are made out of cardboard.
8
Mr Zuckerberg owes Mr Soros a public apology.
12
What? In a company obsessed with metrics - they didnt know what their Thugs were up to? Even IF they didn't want to see the exact work their Thugs were doing (like bring me his head, or a thumb!) they most certainly knew what sort ofwork their hire goons were doing.
This is the problem with nefarious white collar behaviors. We've been allowing the Perps to distance themselves from their hired goons, as if its a real act of contrition.
"Oh they fired their goons...they are saints."
So whats next for The Zuck and The 'Berg? Some Trumpian denial? "I don't know him/them. Never heard of them. Didn't they fetch coffees?"
6
It breaks my heart that Jewish people like Zuckerberg and Sandburg can be so immoral as to implement a smear campaign against a Jewish philanthropist and by their own hand increase anti Semitic hate across the nation.
19
This is such a nothing burger. What the Times is describing in nefarious terms is what every well-managed firm should do: Defend itself against detractors and position itself positively relative to competitors. Two Jewish people spreading anti-semitic vitriol about Soros? What js the Times’ real vendetta here? Get over yourself NYT and return to substance again.
4
@Steve The NYT is behaving like a Russian Bot!
1
Steve and Ziegfeld Follies- The NYT’s is a highly regarded institution whose presence and indefatigable work these many years has been instrumental in enlightening the public and keeping our democracy alive and well.
5
@Steve Disagree. Not every "well-managed" firm does this - and does it in the way FB did, aligning itself with a nefarious firm run by people with a far-right-leaning agenda, including the "dog whistle" trick of smearing Soros without any proof of substance. Two Jewish people spreading anti-semitic vitriol about Soros? Yes, that's a big problem in the eyes of many. Big thanks and congrats to the NYT for breaking this story.
3
I read news stories about companies Face Book hires and what they pay these firms to do...and yet we are also told that Face Book has no idea of just how much they shape public policy and opinion nor are they interested in doing so.
Something is not adding up.
3
Exactly why I left Facebook. Using it in 2016-2017 made me feel slimy.
6
So Facebook ended its vicarious nefarious activity because they got caught.
8
@mls maybe not. I'll bet they hired another firm to do it more quietly.
2
The damage this single company has wrought on the world is incalculable: Decimation of norms of privacy and basic human interaction, eviscerating a once vibrant world wide web, normalizing and facilitating toxic misinformation, undermining democracy, serving as an organizational conduit for murderous mobs and genocidal regimes around he world. The mind reels... It’s as if we’ve collectively allowed all the fundamentals of life to be totally upended by the zero-EQ cyborg Mark Zuckerberg. I’ve been off Facebook for two years, but the tentacles and side effects of this monster remain ubiquitous and inescapable. It has truly metastasized into an evil cancer on our species.
7
"Top Facebook executives including Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg were not aware of the specific work being done by Definers, the person said."
Horse Feathers! It's called Plausible Deniability. Seems like those two can expand on tons of minutia when a Congressional Committee is asking. Oh but now they're above the fray. Right!
8
Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between naive and sinister motives. Both, it seems, will end up destroying the world.
Miller stated: "On a personal note I'm really blown up by the accusations. Im disgusted by the rise of anti-semitism including people who have falsely targeted Soros."
Yeah, all you did was piggyback on that anti-Semitism by targeting Soros' contributions to groups that were antagonistic to Facebook as if to say his being a contributor discredits those groups.
6
As Maya Angelou so famously said: When someone shows you who they are, believe them.
Facebook? Got it.
10
Again, Facebook was a paragon of virtue, ignorant of how it’s actions adversely promoted innuendo and disinformation. Hey, they made the car; they aren’t the driver?
1
It's dispiriting that Facebook proves yet again that the most likely motivation it can find for acting in the public interest is when it is caught out by prying eyes, i.e., investigators and potentially regulators. Where is the higher conscience or calling that its founder and CEO like to project or have others assume? Apparently it has been dissolved in the acid bath of Wall Street. And the revolving lobby[ist] door of the inside-the-beltway crowd. Catch us and we might change; let us slip under the radar, and good luck.
5
It is difficult to keep Big Tech out of our lives. I myself was captured by Apple in 1989 when I got my first computer, an SE30. I fell in love and have been a user, even a very occasional beta tester and early adopter, ever since. I was early onboard with its $100/year email service, even though I had to scrape pennies together one year I was unemployed.
I’m okay that Apple knows me and my most basic demographic profile like gender, age, and home address but it doesn’t know what I like and dislike down to microscopic levels of intrusion. That $100 guaranteed me that Apple didn’t need to comb through my emails to lift personal details to pay for its service the way Google did for gmail. Eventually, Apple realized it had plenty of real, actually tangible products to sell that later subsidizing the email service and making it free was a smart investment in its long term loyal customers. It keeps us in the ecosystem while continuing to trumpet the fact that it doesn’t need to sell our intimate data to fund its core mission, making and selling hardware and software as Tim Cook says.
So, yes, Big Tech is hard to avoid but it’s never been hard to see who sells actual products and who has nothing to sell but data. There is a way to enjoy the tech without selling your soul. That’s why someone as tech savvy as me was gravely suspicious to the point of refusal when MySpace, Facebook, and the others first appeared. My first question always was and ever will be, “why is it free?”
7
@left coast finch
Okay, I know some smartalec is about to reply, “but Apple does know what you like and dislike down to microscopic levels of intrusion!” Like I said, it’s hard to avoid Big Tech. The difference is that Apple has no need to monetize my emails and has been saying so for years. I’ve also never suffered a data breach in 16 years of using its email service. I also don’t discuss too much of a deeply personal nature via email and I routinely offload my past emails, clear the servers, and store emails I want to save on a hard drive at home.
4
Definers should change their slogan to Delay, deny, deflect and defraud.
10
Oh, sure. Who actually believes Zuckerberg and Sandberg weren’t aware?
8
Facebook needs to fire Sandberg for cause.
4
Hmm... Facebook and disinformation seem to be attracting each other.
5
Social media are a curse. We don't need to know everything about everyone with a smart phone or an internet connection. We don't need to be "liked" or lied to, or manipulated to buy or vote one way or another.
7
Facebook cutting ties with Definers the day before The NY Times investigative article reaffirms the public relations strategy described in the investigative article. Deny, deflect, blame competitors, attack critics, marshal lobbyists, and when caught, express contrition. Facebook has violated the trust of its users again and again, and yet Sandberg and her “management team” remain.
75
The Winkelvoss twins must be experiencing schadenfreude.
19
It's well past time to breakup & regulate Facebook, Amazon & Google.
7
In this time of the "24-hour news cycle", news, and news-like programing never stop. They're always running, blanketing our consciousness.
1
ONLY AFTER GETTING CAUGHT, Facebook Cuts Ties With Washington Firm That Sought to Discredit Social Network’s Critics.
That first part is important. FB would have continued this shady practice otherwise. Thank you, journalists.
38
Zuckerberg hires a company and claims he had no idea what they were doing. Sure. Has he been taking denial lessons from trump?
22
Ms. Sandberg and Mr. Zuckerberg will be practicing their tried and true, "We've got to do better" speech. By now, they know the words by heart... but they are not professional actors and both regret and remorse are difficult to fake.
10
Facebook has cleared up its fake-news problem by out-sourcing it!
16
Well, the GOP are masters of propaganda.
4
This vitriol crime is committed by both the enablers of fake news for profit and the consumer who uses it. It is obvious to me that facebook management, I blame Sanderg for greater than Zuckerberg, who is basically a techy nerd and she seems to me to be the brains behind their actions. What kind of idiots use facebook to get their news? When there is both producers and consumers of idiocy, consumer's stupidity is no excuse for the producers nefarious business tactics. As with Trump, you cannot separate his lies from his supporters acceptance of these lies, especially when the means to find out truth against lies are already available everywhere.
12
@Beachboy
A techy nerd? He's the Anti-Christ.
2
This company has zero moral compass
Zuckerberg is a semi-autistic tech geek with no emotional intelligence and Sandberg is 1,000 percent focused on one thing and one thing only: the bottom line
19
Dr Luciano,
semi autistic? As the father of autistic son I would like the basis for your diagnosis.
Maybe you can share with the readers where in the autism spectrum Mr Zuckerberg resides.
@Viking, its likely Luciano has confused Autism with Asperger's syndrome. "Many individuals who have worked with him report that he has several characteristics of Asperger’s Syndrome, including social awkwardness, repetitive behaviors, and a lack of empathy."
This site suggests he has autism too.
http://autismsd.com/is-mark-zuckerberg-autistic/
This company is evil
10
No wonder Facebook was so hesitant to combat click bait, sensational stories, and Fake news that spreads like wildfire on it's platform...because they used the same type of tactics with consultants like Definers.
In an ideal world we need new regulation essentially limiting the profitability of these companies (including ones like Google). These companies are too big, but at the same time they do not have a clear way to be broken up (network effects are especially strong here). Other regulations are imperative. It is clear that monetizing individual data is dangerous for freedom and liberty. Either the FTC or a new Consumer Privacy Protection Bureau (similar to the CFPB perhaps) needs to be empowered here. They would not only regulate big tech companies, but others like Credit Bureaus (I am looking at you Equifax).
At a fundamental level, it seems corporations have more rights under our constitution then We The People. Cases like Citizens United, allowing companies to use arbitration clauses in employment contracts, etc. We The People no longer have rights.
I am hesitant to say it, but it is now true. When a company behaves like Facebook, it is un-American. Plain and simple. It is against our values, freedom, and liberty.
20
Facebook is a social media platform that’s really only good for maintaining long distance family and friend relationships, it’s not a place to get truthful factual news that has been researched and vetted by professional journalists.
The profession itself has come under attack by many of these social media platforms because everyone and their mother can write anything they want without standards that govern professional journalist.
Part of the problem is the audiences themselves. They are intellectually and civically lazy.
But professional journalists need to take the reign of this beast back by policing its standards and refusing professional memberships to faux news anchors and others who aren’t truly journalists but rather entertainers or political lackeys.
10
@Issy
“Facebook is a social media platform that’s really only good for maintaining long distance family and friend relationships”
Not really, if it means supporting the tactics Facebook uses and becoming part of its evil. There are email, USMail, and phones available for maintaining long distance relationships. If Facebook is the only option, I’d reevaluate those relationships. If someone can’t be bothered to return my call or email, I just let them go and don’t prostitute myself to get their attention.
7
@Issy Yes. Do you think the NYT is finally ready to close down their Facebook and Twitter accounts?
I'm waiting. I'm waiting. I'm waiting.
Maybe they'll do it when they write their 10,000 article on how evil social media is.
NYT Editorial Board should think about leading by example. I know its hard. The right thing to do is not always the easiest thing to do.
2
"All virtue is merely a matter of prices." Rhett Butler to Scarlett O'Hara
And, apparently, all virtue is merely a matter of appearances to Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Sandberg.
11
would you expect anything deeper from the vanguard of the selfie generation?
2
Few Facebook users understand FB's revenue-making architecture and the risks to privacy. In fact, even Congress has no clue - despite all those young tekkies serving as aids. In a nutshell - FB gives everyone a free phone to communicate with all other FBer's, but they listen to your conversations, harvest data, re=package that data, and then sell to whomever will pay - including foreign belligerants. At the most fundamental level - this is a violation of rights to privacy and the Constitution. Do the world a favor - cancel and erase your FB account.
13
It is always a convenient excuse to deny knowledge of something that causes great damage and therefore remain aloof and protected.
So we see again such a defense from Zuckerberg and Sandberg who now throw Definers 'under the bus.'
I don't believe neither knew Definers would present a fierce and bare-knuckles protection plan but then plausible deniability is the home of cowardice, lies and subterfuge.
Such is the swampy kingdom of Facebook and conservative politicians.
7
Tim Miller doth protest too much. Trump and the Republican Party he once worked for routinely traffics in lies, smears, racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny, and xenophobia. Now it appears that Facebook isn't too squeamish about those actions either. Remember folks, this isn't about freedom, liberty, justice, America, apple pie, or mom. It's about money and power, however they can be grabbed and matter who is hurt. Zuckerberg and others would find a way to make a home in the Russian oligarchy if necessary.
6
Where are the investigations?
6
Zuckerberg and Sandberg may be brilliant capitalists, but they have astoundingly poor judgment and a mindboggling myopia about their role in world affairs. They're terrifying.
18
The company has grown so big and influential that its brand seems to be hard to tarnish. If true, that will almost prove its techno-mechanism to be industrially autonomous, apart from human hands who try to control over. As a NYT subscriber, I’ve openly criticized Facebook even at the time when Mr. Zuckerberg dismissed fake news as if a joke. I’m no part of organized anti-Facebook movements. But, counter-waves came and have come onto me, since, before, and will ever after. There may be, or may not be, outsourced huge fundings from both sides; advocators and critics. Regardless of which, irresponsible social media users can be a real vice in my view, for they are slippery and elusive on their morality, while very wrongly believing that the digital power in mass would engineer a society, politics, and even individuals’ privacies and truths in distortions and retaliations through lies and slanders on palm-sized device networks.
3
The Definers are the epitomy of what is bad about Washington and why our Moron in Chief can sell the trope of DC being a swamp. Funny.....it was established and is run unapologetically by Republican operatives. They create the swamp to sell the swamp and then say that the swamp is not the swamp's fault because another swamp is worse. Talk about Fake News......
19
Another instance of FB responding to outcry. Why can't it get ahead of its problems?
14
@Rovanne Um, I dunno, Lack of a moral compass, maybe?
6
" Top Facebook executives including Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg were not aware of the specific work being done by Definers, the person said."
Sure, and the Sawdy Prince knew nothing of his Khashoggi execution orders.
49
Mr. Zuckerberg knows no shame.
15
Hey, Facebook, you hired Definers. You own this, the same way that MBS owns the assassination team that killed Khashoggi.
46
We need to bring these tech companies under stricter corporate governance laws, tax laws (to properly disclose its revenues from various sources), and consumer protection laws, as we do for other companies, including those in financial sector.
We know that many Democratic leaders like Clintons are not much different than Trump type Republican ones. All these politicians- irrespective of party affiliation- are deliberately soft on or reluctant to holding such companies accountable. I hope many newly elected democrat and few Republican congressmen would be more vocal and aggressive to hold such "too big to fail" Tech companies (that include Twitter, Amazon, and Google) accountable its monopolistic business models.
24
I wish these articles were published prior to the election last week. It would of once again informed the public that these social media’s who are destroying our democracy may have gotten more people to the polls.
How in the world do these two greedy individuals have the nerve to say they didn’t know what the consulting firm that they hired were doing. It’s always about greed, the cover up and these two with other CEO’s of to big to fail need to be gone. There products we can live without if they take away our privacy and sell our data to the highest bidder. We need to be doing what Europe is doing . Enough
39
I can't imagine myself ever buying Facebook stock after this.
8
@Michael Chorost
Did you buy Facebook stock before this? Have you sold it?
So while Facebook was very publicly going after fake accounts that were spreading false information to influence the elections, they were very quietly spreading false information about their critics?
I'm so glad my FB experience lasted about a month. I could never understand how people were screaming about online privacy while providing FB with every intimate detail of their lives.
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George Soros is so frequently attacked for continuing to live as a Holocaust Survivor.
The crocodile tears of Zuckerberg, Sandburg, and Tim Miller certainly won't put out the steaming dung heap they inhabit.
Zuckerberg and Sandburg are more lucky than good, more greedy and corrupt and the waste is the two can't fathom that fact.
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The Facebook sleaze gets deeper every day.
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I don’t see how Facebook can survive this. Operating like the mafia.
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FB: "We were shocked to find out that these guys were spreading disinformation and using dirty tricks on our behalf!"
Bridge for sale, cheap!
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Facebook was a great idea.
Too bad it was ruined by people: the people running it and the people using it.
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* who they are, I meant.
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Facebook is just taking a page out of the GOP/Trump playbook. Don't address the problems, attack those who criticize them. They use it because it works.
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Dropping Definers in response to negative attention is perfectly consistent with so many other Facebook missteps: The company often seems to be rudderless unless and until widespread public opprobrium forces it to question the propriety of its choices. When it does, it seems fixated on how to resume profiteering rather than address what people are angry about or repelled by. Clearly the company has sensed that many people were disgusted by these revelations, but does anyone in a position of power there grasp why? Or want to? Or do they just want to bury the story as soon as possible? The way the company behaves in these scenarios suggests, over and over again, that executives resent being revealed for who they are far and how they work, but aren’t interested in or capable of behaving more admirably.
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@Madeleine
Greed motivates them, no difference between them and the people in the White House
Now that they have been exposed once again as do nothings in charge . Anyone still using Facebook is supporting a company like Amazon. Google who don’t care about the public
This article is sickening.
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@Madeleine
The only misstep was getting caught.
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Zuckerberg's whole philosophy is move fast, even if you break things. Well, he has weakened our democracy, contributed to a campaign of genocide, fueled the rise of racism, caused fake riots, gave us Donald Trump, provided the Russians and the Chinese with our personal data, which they are using to destroy our democracy by pitting one American against the other. If this isn't bad enough, and it is criminal, now they are hiring firms to go after their critics. And for what? So they can make lots of money selling us stuff we don't need by manipulating us with our own data. Facebook hasn't brought us together. It has pushed us apart. Now we know that the Russians and the Chinese have all our data, which they have now weaponized thanks to Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Sandberg. If this isn't a high crime, like providing information to our enemies for money, then I don't know what is.
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@Henry Stites You’ve added the “even if” there—Zuckerberg’s motto was “move fast and break things.” Breaking things was expressly part of its goals.
https://mashable.com/2014/04/30/facebooks-new-mantra-move-fast-with-stability/#x48ODFWjrPqB
That the company wasn’t and isn’t primarily interested in bringing people together has been abundantly clear from the very beginning. The business model revolves around monetizing any and all connections between people it can inject itself into, not simply facilitating connections. I think that’s an important distinction.
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@Madeleine This is not quite fair. All businesses necessarily revolve around getting people to pay for whatever it is that the company provides. Thus of course Facebook does not want to connect us for free, any more than IKEA wants to furnish our apartments for free. They want to "monetize" (the new word for "get paid for") our desire for connections or our desire for furniture. The question isn't whether they are making money from it -- of course they are, that is what businesses do! The question is whether Facebook is doing unethical things, which seems to be the case.
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@tsl All for-profit companies try to profit, of course, and you seem to agree that Facebook is not merely profiting but profiteering, by behaving unethically in profit-seeking. I don’t quite follow what you think is unfair about my comment. In any case, there was an interesting piece in the NYT a few years ago by a corporate law professor about the common but mistaken view that for-profit companies have legal or fiduciary obligations to maximize profits:
https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-corporations-obligations-to-shareholders/corporations-dont-have-to-maximize-profits
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What a mess.
I’m glad I deleted my Facebook account 6 months ago.
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I know people who won't go to Hobby Lobby or Walmart, who won't eat Chick-Fil-A or buy BP gas. They tsk-tsk about the terrible behavior of companies big companies like Amazon.
Yet they keep their Facebook accounts.
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@Randy So long as we’re exchanging anecdotes, I know people who’ve never had Facebook accounts. I’m one of them. I have several friends who also find the company repellant.
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@Randy
I fill my tank with BP (get better mileage too) and have a FB Account. Without it I wouldn't be able to stay in contact with friends and family living in Nevada, California, Montana, Texas and Florida. Certainly not happy with Zuck's business practices and perhaps he should step down but I will continue to keep my account open.
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@Randy
Right?! How did FB become so essential? Not by tapping into the best of us. It is impossibly frustrating to see my smart, insightful friends refuse to reflect upon how destructive this convenience is...My life has returned to pre-FB levels of satisfaction and discontent since I quit a year ago, which is a much, much better way to live.
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Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandburg didn’t know? That’s their defense? The board should hold them accountable for what they should have known. Or perhaps they didn’t know because apparently the culture retaliates against anyone who might have told them. I’m sure no one at Facebooks wants to be accused of throwing leadership “under the bus.”
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@MyjobisinIndianow Shareholders may have cause for a suit against Facebook. If so, I look forward to it.
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@MyjobisinIndianow
If you know anything about business you'd know the board is handpicked by the CEO they probably won't ask him to step aside unless the share prices tanks. It pays to know people in high places.
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Thank you, NYT!
Sunlight continues to be the best disinfectant.
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Facebook ands its ilk have done more to diminish true social interactions between people than can even be imagined. As a means of communication it’s fine, but it isn’t a substitute for making real friends and relating to them face to face. It also has provided a mechanism for disseminating false news on both sides of the political spectrum that heretofore did not exist. All in all, probably not a force for good.
In trying to protect its business interests it is no different than any large company including ExxonMobil, GE, Amazon, et al. Probably this comes as a shock to some Millennials.
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Facebook is the vampire squid of our decade. I’ve stopped using it for 2 years now and have never regretted a second.
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@Jay Lincoln If you haven’t deleted your account, they may still be counting you as a user. They tout the number of users they have in every quarterly earnings report because those are hugely important figures for them, relevant to advertising rates, investor relations, and so forth. If you want to withdraw your support, delete the account. There are lots of sites who’ve published good how-to guides for downloading data and deleting accounts.
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I've never had a Facebook account and somehow survived and thrived anyway. I consider Facebook a waste of time and energy.
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