| Friend,
We’ve known for a while that Facebook’s abuse of power is out of control. But last week, a New York Times investigation revealed that the organization’s leaders have stooped to a new low:
Among other things, Facebook Vice President Joel Kaplan hired a notorious GOP public-relations firm to push far-right conspiracy theories to smear racial-justice group Color Of Change and others.1
Facebook has gone too far: Tell the organization to immediately fire Joel Kaplan and reject the overtly anti-Black and anti-Semitic misinformation campaign he directed.
It’s clear that Facebook engaged in this effort to stop Color Of Change from asking hard questions about how the company is harming its users and this nation’s democracy. Facebook also attempted to smear critics at groups like Demand Progress and the Open Markets Institute.
But the investigation reveals something even deeper: Some leaders at Facebook — a company that’s drawn lawmakers’ scrutiny for its role in fueling the fires of hate, state surveillance and even genocide2 — have no problem taking pages from the White-supremacist playbook to further their goals.
The implications are beyond dangerous: Join our call for Facebook to clean up its act, starting with the firing of Joel Kaplan for leading a campaign against Color Of Change and others.
The specific lie driving Facebook’s campaign was that Color Of Change was under the control of billionaire George Soros, head of the Open Society Foundations (a funder of Free Press). Far-right groups frequently demonize Soros, who recently received a pipe bomb at his residence. As this particular smear campaign unfolded, Color Of Change experienced an uptick in death threats.3
There’s no denying the anti-Semitism and racism in Facebook’s strategy. Color Of Change President Rashad Robinson described it this way in a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg: | “No matter how innocuously you may choose to represent it publicly, pushing the Jewish 'puppet masters' trope was intentional. It is ripped from a playbook centuries in the making and directly linked to attempts to undermine the civil rights movement in the 1960s. It also has very real and deadly consequences, something that should have been made all too clear to you with the tragic shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue by an anti-Soros conspiracy theorist.” |
Facebook’s behavior is disgusting and dangerous: Join us in calling for the organization to fire Joel Kaplan and change course immediately.
The 2016 U.S. presidential election showed us just how dangerous Facebook’s reach has become. Russian actors reportedly used the platform, and others, to influence the election outcome — in part by impersonating Black activists.4
And advocates at Color Of Change, the Center for Media Justice, Free Press and many other groups have long pushed Facebook to address a variety of issues on its platform, including recruitment for violent hate groups, law-enforcement spying on activists, abuse of private user data, and its own removals of lawful speech by activists of color.
The New York Times report deepens what we already knew: Facebook has an outsized hold on the flow of ideas in our society — and a crisis of morality in its boardroom.
Join us in the call for change. That begins with firing Joel Kaplan.
Thanks for all that you do—
Collette, Jessica, Lucia, Candace, Dutch, and the rest of the Free Press team
freepress.net
P.S. Facebook hired a PR firm to smear Color Of Change and other advocates with a far-right conspiracy campaign. Tell the company to fire executive Joel Kaplan and reject his disgusting strategy.
1. “Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis,” The New York Times, Nov. 14, 2018: https://act.freepress.net/go/28152?t=10&akid=11524%2E10296224%2EOJq1eD 2. “U.N. Investigators Cite Facebook Role in Myanmar Crisis,” Reuters, March 12, 2018: https://act.freepress.net/go/28153?t=12&akid=11524%2E10296224%2EOJq1eD 3. “A Racial-Justice Group Got Death Threats After Facebook Launched Secret Smear Campaign,” Salon, Nov. 20, 2018: https://act.freepress.net/go/28154?t=14&akid=11524%2E10296224%2EOJq1eD 4. “Did Russia Fake Black Activism on Facebook to Sow Division in the U.S.?” The Guardian, Sept. 30, 2017: https://act.freepress.net/go/28155?t=16&akid=11524%2E10296224%2EOJq1eD  |
