Two weeks after The New York Times revealed Facebook’s controversial work with Republican opposition analysis agency Definers Public Affairs, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg has modified her story in important methods.
The newest revelation: Sandberg herself directed Facebook’s communications staff to probe the monetary ties of George Soros, left-leaning billionaire and frequent political goal of the precise. The new reporting cites an e mail between Sandberg and a Facebook senior govt that was circulated extra broadly to senior comms and coverage workers. “Sheryl sent an email asking if Mr. Soros had shorted Facebook’s stock,” a Facebook spokesperson mentioned in an announcement offered to TechSwitch.
As TechSwitch has realized — and Sandberg herself alluded to in an announcement — Sandberg was additionally looped into emails about Definers, the staff that later performed analysis into Soros on Facebook’s behalf. Definers was additionally built-in extra deeply into Facebook’s communications operations than has beforehand been reported.
People educated of Facebook’s interior workings and people exterior of the corporate expressed shock at Sandberg’s option to initially deny any information of the connection with Definers. “Mark issued an absolute denial and Sheryl followed, which surprised all of us because we knew her denial wasn’t true,” a supply acquainted with the agency’s work with Facebook informed TechSwitch. “She’s pretty exposed right now.”
When the Definers story broke, Mark Zuckerberg issued a swift assertion denying any information of the agency’s work. Sheryl Sandberg additionally denied any information of Definers, although walked that assertion again 4 days later when Facebook’s just lately departed coverage and communications head Elliot Schrage took the blame for the work.
In an announcement coupled along with his, Sandberg mentioned that she initially didn’t bear in mind a agency named Definers however upon overview admitted that the agency’s work with Facebook was “incorporated into materials” offered to her and that the agency was referenced in “a small number of emails” she had acquired. Facebook’s determination to rent Definers, a corporate-facing outgrowth of the Republican America Rising PAC recognized for its fierce opposition analysis, proved to be a deeply controversial departure from Silicon Valley moral norms.
How the Definers relationship started
As TechSwitch has realized, Definers started its work with Facebook via Facebook’s content material communications staff and Facebook’s director of Policy Communications, Andrea Saul, who beforehand labored below Definers founder Matt Rhoades on Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential marketing campaign. Saul served because the nationwide press secretary for the marketing campaign from early 2011 to November 2012 below Rhoades, who managed the marketing campaign. After the Romney marketing campaign ended, Saul went to work doing communications for Sheryl Sandberg’s nonprofit LeanIn.org and located her technique to Facebook in 2016.
Some members of Facebook’s communications staff are former Republican marketing campaign staffers and strategists with ties to the surface agency that Facebook controversially introduced in to assist its personal inside PR efforts. As TechSwitch beforehand reported, these ties are largely via Romney’s marketing campaign.
After it was set into movement, Facebook’s relationship with Definers was principally overseen by Andrea Saul, Tom Reynolds and Ruchika Budhraja in Menlo Park. In Washington, D.C., Definers was dealt with by Andy Stone below Facebook’s chief lobbyist, Joel Kaplan. Kaplan, who labored within the George W. Bush administration with Definers’ founder and its president, was additionally within the loop, given his high-level coverage function and place as a robust in-house Republican voice amongst many at Facebook. Kaplan made headlines just lately when he made a public present of assist for Brett Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court nominee who was accused of sexual violence and later confirmed.
As TechSwitch beforehand reported, many members of Facebook’s communications staff are former Republican marketing campaign staffers and strategists with ties to the surface agency that Facebook controversially introduced in to assist its personal inside PR efforts. Facebook’s Tucker Bounds additionally has shut ties to Definers via his buddy Tim Miller, who helped create America Rising, the political motion committee prong of the agency. His function within the relationship with Facebook, if any, isn’t clear.
It’s true that Definers got here on board initially for extra generic PR assist — not oppo analysis per se — and that’s how the agency’s involvement was framed in an e mail introducing them into Facebook’s personal staff. According to a supply who spoke with TechSwitch, “The work that they were doing initially was nonpartisan, it was media monitoring.” Definers offered Facebook with its personal press lists and engaged in different extra mundane day after day PR actions.
Over time, Facebook leaned extra closely on the surface agency. Definers labored carefully with Facebook’s coverage communications staff, checking in via weekly calls. While authorized agency WilmerHale ready the Facebook CEO and COO for his or her time on the stand, Definers additionally assisted with all three Congressional hearings that introduced Facebook earlier than Congress, together with Zuckerberg and Sandberg’s hearings. For Sandberg’s listening to, Definers dealt with the disaster PR responding to the occasion and the protection across the testimony.
“Facebook consultants are on very short leashes,” a supply acquainted with the work informed TechSwitch. “Everything that Definers shared with media was approved by a Facebook employee.” While an outdoor company might need extra autonomy in working with a special firm, Facebook was carefully concerned within the agency’s work and was doubtless conscious of all of its plans and dealings. “Definers knows where the bodies are buried,” the supply informed TechSwitch.
So far nothing has turned as much as point out that Zuckerberg, like Sandberg, had prior publicity to the agency’s work. Given his normal disinterest in media relations, it’s plausible that Mark Zuckerberg had no consciousness of Definers or the communications staff’s deep and sometimes out within the open ties with the exterior Republican communications agency. Zuckerberg is much much less concerned within the strategic selections that go into the way in which Facebook positions itself to the surface world than Sandberg herself.
Facebook’s communications staff is an infamously well-oiled machine and that machine is commonly put to make use of to guard Sandberg and promote her agenda — at occasions over Facebook’s personal pursuits. If Sandberg’s newest and maybe most shocking admission will ultimately pressure belief in her management to a breaking level stays to be seen.
Update: Facebook requested for us to incorporate their most up-to-date full assertion on Sandberg on this story.
“As Elliot said last week, we researched potential motivations behind George Soros’s criticism of Facebook in January 2018. Mr. Soros is a prominent investor and we looked into his investments and trading activity related to Facebook. That research was already underway when Sheryl sent an email asking if Mr. Soros had shorted Facebook’s stock. Sheryl never directed research on Freedom from Facebook. But as she said before she takes full responsibility for any activity that happened on her watch.”
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