back to article Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg can't remember smear firm, but 'some of their work' crossed her desk

Facebook's outgoing public policy chief, Elliot Schrage, appears to have fallen on his sword, taking the blame for smearing critics of the company. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Facebook's CEO on his latest almighty Zuck-up: OK, we did try to smear critics, but I was too out-of-the-loop to know READ MORE Facebook had already …

  1. Luke Worm

    Nothing to see here

    Leaving anyway, takes the blame, gets a couple of million $ as “consolation”.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Nothing to see here

      Only a couple of million? That would count as grievous punishment in Corporate-World.

  2. FlamingDeath Silver badge

    Face what?

    1. ThatOne Silver badge
      Coat

      > Face what?

      Palm.

  3. Cincinnataroo

    Will this sink her presidential ambitions?

    1. A.P. Veening Silver badge

      Presidential ambitions

      Of course it won't sink her presidential ambitions, the public will have forgotten all about it by the time the presidential candidates have to register for the next presidential elections.

      1. BebopWeBop

        Re: Presidential ambitions

        Well the grand funkmeister managed it and got to the warehouse - but will he be first in line calling for her to be 'locked up'? Depends on the way the wind is blowing I suspect

      2. jmch Silver badge

        Re: Presidential ambitions

        "the public will have forgotten all about it by the time the presidential candidates have to register for the next presidential elections."

        au contraire, it doesn't matter a jot if the voting public still remember. They don't care.

  4. Winkypop Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    The more they obfuscate

    The more guilty they appear

  5. PhilipN Silver badge

    Did you see it?

    The main statement : “ double-check whether anything had crossed my desk”. Smart move - making sure first there is no paper trail so she can say whatever the hell she likes. How could she not know?

    She ain’t presidential material though: they are past masters at “plausible deniability” without so clumsily demonstrating how they achieve it.

  6. BebopWeBop

    Anti-Facebook protesters had arrived at one Congress hearing with placards comparing Facebook to a globe-encircling octopus.

    Facebook reportedly called the Anti-Defamation League to condemn the placards as antisemitic.

    That is rich coming from a company that has behaved as badly as Facebook - are octopi jewish?

    Sandberg is just getting her excuses in early, I am sure that more of her involvement (and Zuck's) will begin to leak out - lots of little mea culpas in an attempt to make this look a little less worse than it really is.

  7. Paul Stimpson
    Boffin

    "a fraction of work"

    Any percentage can be expressed as a fraction. 1/100, 99/100, 100/100 and the word "small" (or similar) is conspicuously missing from that statement.

    I hope you can forgive that my "spin bullshitometer" is indicating a non-zero value.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "are octopi jewish?"

    They were also used in anti-Semitic propaganda - but not only - it's a common trope, but of course trying to shift the protest towards antisemitism looked useful - of course while attacking Soros as well - who has been attacked because his Jewish roots.

    Those are pure propaganda techniques - you don't look for facts or reasonable defense, you just try to agitate hitting sensitive topics which will make people fist act and then think.

    What is very worrying is people setup up such companies and are hired and paid as it was plain business.... and data hoarders like Facebook are a boon for such crooks.

    1. jmch Silver badge

      Re: "are octopi jewish?"

      "They were also used in anti-Semitic propaganda"

      I don't think it's specifically antisemitic, it's more like a good metaphor for something/someone having many fingers in many different pies... the fact that the metaphor has been used as antisemitic propaganda doesn't mean that using the metaphor is antisemitic. For example in Italian 'la piovra' (Italian for octopus) is a nickname for the mafia.

      Certainly the use of the octopus metaphor with respect to Facebook is not intended to be complimentary.. but then again FB fully deserve it..

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "I don't think it's specifically antisemitic"

        No, it isn't, but it didn't matter to Definers - all they needed was to draw some kind of parallel between the protesters images and some anti-Semitic images - of course in this case there would be many others as the octopus is not used only and mostly in that context (there are some specific anti-Semitic tropes, that's not one) - and that was enough to stir some specific activists outrage.

        I believed that after the successful Russian trolling activists groups on any side would have learned to check before acting to avoid to be utterly used, but the word "activist" itself looks to mean that thinking and assessing facts and tailoring reactions is not what they are.

        Let's remember the (apocryphal) Lenin's words (who knew propaganda techniques very well) about "useful idiots".

        I'm much scared about the number of "useful idiots" who can be identified, selected, grouped and reached through systems like Facebook.

        1. #define INFINITY -1

          Re: "I don't think it's specifically antisemitic"

          I think that happened years ago.

    2. Matthew Glubb

      Re: "are octopi jewish?"

      In modern English, it's either octopuses or octopodes. Never octopi as the word comes from Greek, not Latin.

  9. Nick Ryan Silver badge

    Research into critics

    I'd be happier if they did admit that they hired an agency to research critics of them. There is nothing wrong with that, and knowing if the critics are genuine (as in not a smear campaign) then it can provide a lot of valuable input to fixing things. Targetting critics as a result is not on at all though.

    1. #define INFINITY -1

      Re: Research into critics

      According to whose rules?

      Then again, I suppose you live in a place where rule-of-law aligns with tolerance and consideration. Down here in Sunny SA....

  10. Potemkine! Silver badge

    Lies, damned lies and facebook PR

    What could we expect from Face de Bouc except a weaselish pseudo-justification?

  11. Mike 16

    Our octopod overlords

    So, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA-247 is a not-so-subtle message that (some?) US TLAs are parts in a vast conspiracy having something to do with a certain Abrahamic faith, but also so self-aware they would advertise this themselves?

  12. SVV

    How could they possibly have known?

    For a company whose mission is to try and know everything about everybody, it's amusing when their executives try and claim that they didn't know nuffink about anyfink.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Devil

      Re: How could they possibly have known?

      Did Sandberg befriend/follow/whatever Definers on socials? If not, of course she's totally innocent!

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