Facebook’s outgoing communications chief, Elliot Schrage, has taken responsibility for the company’s decision to hire Definers, the conservative consulting firm at the centre of a backlash over its work targeting critics, including investor George Soros.
Schrage said the communications team owned the decision and the relationship with the firm, after Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg promised a thorough review of how Definers had been used to push back against criticism of the social media company.
Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg and Sandberg said they were caught off guard by a New York Times report that said the company had used Definers to connect some critics to Soros. The billionaire philanthropist, who was born in Hungary and later became a US financier and donor, is often singled out by nationalist and anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists.
In a message to staff, Schrage said Definers was brought in in 2017 as Facebook sought more outside advice in Washington amid pressure from rivals and media companies for tighter government regulation. He said the firm’s role later expanded to include work on Facebook competitors and research into campaigns funded by Soros.
“Responsibility for these decisions rests with leadership of the Communications team,” Schrage said. “That’s me.”
Sandberg also said she was accountable for the public relations firms working with the company. She said a review of material that had passed across her desk showed Definers was mentioned in some documents and in a small number of emails she received.
According to Schrage, Definers began examining Soros after he called Facebook a “menace to society” in a speech at Davos earlier this year. He said the company wanted to know whether the criticism had any financial motive and that the research relied on public information.
He added that when a “Freedom from Facebook” campaign later emerged as a supposed grassroots effort, Definers found that Soros was funding some of the coalition’s members and passed that information to the press.
Schrage said the communications team relied more heavily on Definers as pressure on Facebook increased during the year, and that the arrangement became less centrally managed. He and Facebook’s top executives insisted the firm was not hired to invent or spread false stories on the company’s behalf.
Zuckerberg said Facebook stopped working with Definers the day the New York Times story was published. He made the remarks a day after telling CNN Business that he had no intention of resigning as chairman.
“That’s not the plan,” he said when asked whether he would step down.
He also defended Sandberg, saying she remained central to the company’s response to its biggest problems.
Facebook has faced a string of crises this year, including fallout from Russia’s use of the platform to interfere in the 2016 US presidential election, the Cambridge Analytica data scandal involving user information used in an effort to help Donald Trump, and a major security breach affecting millions of accounts.
Last week’s New York Times investigation also said Facebook misled the public about what it knew about Russian election interference and used a public relations firm to spread negative stories about other Silicon Valley companies in an effort to shift criticism away from itself.
