Has Mark Zuckerberg finally gone too far?

ByMartyn Bradbury

Mark Zuckerberg continues to look like someone who has been bitten by a zombie and is desperately trying to hide the fact he’s infected.

Selling off personal information for democratic manipulation and the spread of fake news all the while draining newspapers of revenue to fund critical journalism, Facebook has bypassed gatekeepers and allowed an interconnectedness few dreamed of, but has Mark Zuckerberg finally gone too far?

Facebook investors call for Mark Zuckerberg to resign as chairman
Facebook investors have called on the company’s chief executive Mark Zuckerberg to step down as chairman, following reports that the company hired a public relations firm to smear its critics by drawing links to George Soros.

The attack on Zuckerberg is set to complicate the daunting challenge facing Sir Nick Clegg, Facebook’s new global head of policy and communications, who joined last month and has been asked to conduct a review of Facebook’s use of lobbying firms.

Jonas Kron, a senior vice president at Trillium Asset Management, a US investor which owns an £8.5 million (NZ$15.86m) stake in Facebook, last night called on Zuckerberg to step down as board chairman in the wake of the report.

“Facebook is behaving like it’s a special snowflake,” he said. “It’s not. It is a company and companies need to have a separation of chair and CEO.”

Both Zuckerberg and Sir Nick have been under pressure following reports Facebook hired Definers, a Republican public relations firm, to help repair its battered reputation following intense criticism of the social media platform’s handling of a scandal over Russian interference in the 2016 US elections and the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Definers allegedly encouraged the depiction of Facebook’s critics as anti-Semites and had published news articles criticising Facebook’s competitors. The business has also been accused of attempting to encourage journalists to report that anti-Facebook groups were linked to Soros.

…ahhh, when in doubt, scream anti-semite.

Smearing Facebook critics as linked to Soros and hating Jews is charming but if anyone else had pulled a stunt like this, they would be gone, Facebook somehow manages to remain untouched.

A reckoning may be looming, Facebook is in the whirlpool of tech market meltdowns at the moment and the magnitude of regulation many Governments now want to force upon Facebook suggests Zuckerberg’s dream run could be coming to an end.

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13 Comments

      1. re “Smearing Facebook critics as linked to Soros and hating Jews”

        …contradiction in terms?

        … golly do I have to spell it out to you?

        1. Yes, its bizarre on the face of it. Soros is Jewish, and Mark Zuckerberg is Jewish, yet he hired Definers (a lobbying firm) which then ran an a subtle hate-campaign to link Soros to those opposing Zuckerberg’s business (Fakebook).

          Facebook dumped Definers as soon as this embarrassing campaign was revealed. The puzzle is perhaps why on earth Definers thought it was smart to link Fakebook’s enemies to Soros?

          But the reason is simple. Definers is part of the US alt-Right, which turns naturally to hate-campaigns of this kind: anti-Soros (anti globalist) and anti-semitic (anti-Zionist). Definers are not naive. They knew exactly what they were doing.

          1. interesting!….so Mark Zuckerberg was an idiot to hire Definers?

            ( if as you insinuate Definers is anti -Semitic?)

            ….but maybe there is even more to this? and maybe there is a simpler explanation

            …Soros dumped Facebook shares before they Tanked

            https://www.rt.com/usa/444584-soros-sold-facebook-stocks/

            …and is Facebook neutral?…or is it a tool of Israel?

            ( the Palestinians seem to thinks so)

            https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-facebook-closes-page-of-hamas-affiliated-palestinian-news-agency-1.5939345

            https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/09/facebook-neutral-palestine-israel-conflict-160921115752070.html

            ( so maybe the Definers were not anti-Semitic after-all?)

          2. “Definers” may not necessarily be “anti-semitic”. They simply use anti-semitism (or the suggestion of it) as a tool. Purely for profit, you understand.

            Subtle difference.

  3. It’s hard to give Facebook any legitimacy as a news source when they block my feed at the behest of corrupt dictatorships. It’s best left as a means of sharing pictures of plates of food and cats.

  4. Everyone! Delete all social media accounts now! There is a book just published called Ten Good Reasons Why Everyone Should Delete their Social Media Accounts, written by one of the founders of the internet. His name is…

  5. Jaron Lanier, Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now. The trouble is apparently Facebook tracks people who don’t even have Facebook. And Governments don’t seem to have the knowledge required to regulate the industry and the algorithms have the ability to control peoples emotions and consequently what they think. They influence elections, hence Trump, and create fanatical groups, like ISIS

    1. Obviously, Facebook is a worry. But so was the invention of the printing press. Look what trouble that caused to the authorities, both secular and religious!

      Too late to stop it, and totally pointless to eschew it. Learn to live with it, like everyone else….

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