George Soros’ inner circle is pushing back against what they view as a “smear campaign” by Facebook against the liberal mega donor.
Michael Vachon, a spokesman at Soros Fund Management, called for Facebook to conduct an investigation into its lobbying and public relations work after the New York Times published a report that said the social media giant employed Definers, a Republican opposition-research firm that spread a document linking the anti-Facebook movement to Soros.
“[It is] alarming that Facebook would engage in these unsavory tactics,” Vachon wrote in a letter to associates, according to BuzzFeed News.
The aide also said that the report from the Times made him question whether Facebook was using these tactics to “smear” other people critical of Facebook.
“What else is Facebook up to?” Vachon wrote. “The company should hire an outside expert to do a thorough investigation of its lobbying and PR work and make the results public.”
Patrick Gaspard, the president of Open Society Foundation, a group founded by Soros, wrote a letter to COO of Facebook Sheryl Sandberg saying that the methods Facebook used in employing Definers “threaten the very values underpinning our democracy.”
Open Society President @patrickgaspard‘s letter to @facebook‘s @sherylsandberg about their smear campaign against George Soros & us as reported by @nytimes: https://t.co/YJvCXYWXKm “Your methods threaten the very values underpinning our democracy.” pic.twitter.com/X5Q55MkxVR
— Open Society Foundations (@OpenSociety) November 15, 2018
“I was shocked to learn from the New York Times that you and your colleagues at Facebook hired a Republican opposition research firm to stir up animus toward George Soros,” Gaspard wrote.
Gaspard noted in his letter the many right-wing conspiracy theories that involve Soros are spread through Facebook and helped contributed to death threats and the delivery of a pipe bomb to Soros’ home.
