This weekend, Facebook’s head of advertising, Rob Goldman, caused a firestorm on Twitter, a “tweetstorm” when, in an attempt to defend his company’s role in the Russian disinformation campaign, he affirmed that the Russians weren´t trying to get Trump elected but rather were trying to divide the U.S. population.
Trump himself picked up on the posts and used them to again denounce the “Fake News Media” via Twitter. Goldman’s posts, which did not go through any internal review and were posted from his personal account, overly simplified the results of a very complex investigation the details of which only those directly involved know. It’s likely that the campaign had different objectives at different times. We don´t really know.
Wired has published a good summary of what happened and why here:
“I wanted to apologize for having tweeted my own view about Russian interference without having it reviewed by anyone internally. The tweets were my own personal view and not Facebook’s. I conveyed my view poorly. The Special Counsel has far more information about what happened [than] I do—so seeming to contradict his statements was a serious mistake on my part.
To those of you who have reached out this weekend to offer your support, thank you. It means more than you know. And to all of you who have worked so hard over the last six months to demonstrate that we understand our responsibility to prevent abuse on Facebook—and are working hard to do better in the future—my deepest apologies."
Trump himself picked up on the posts and used them to again denounce the “Fake News Media” via Twitter. Goldman’s posts, which did not go through any internal review and were posted from his personal account, overly simplified the results of a very complex investigation the details of which only those directly involved know. It’s likely that the campaign had different objectives at different times. We don´t really know.
Wired has published a good summary of what happened and why here:
https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-executive-rob-goldman-apologizes-to-company-and-robert-mueller/
Goldman earned himself thousands of Twitter followers, but was forced to post an apology on an internal Facebook site yesterday for Tweeting out of turn:“I wanted to apologize for having tweeted my own view about Russian interference without having it reviewed by anyone internally. The tweets were my own personal view and not Facebook’s. I conveyed my view poorly. The Special Counsel has far more information about what happened [than] I do—so seeming to contradict his statements was a serious mistake on my part.
To those of you who have reached out this weekend to offer your support, thank you. It means more than you know. And to all of you who have worked so hard over the last six months to demonstrate that we understand our responsibility to prevent abuse on Facebook—and are working hard to do better in the future—my deepest apologies."
