There’s nothing quite like the left’s tendency to turn on and cannibalize itself. One day the minions of billionaire political meddler George Soros applaud Facebook; the next, the social media “monopoly” has got to go.
As Liberty Nation’s Joe Schaeffer wrote in October, the Soros-founded group Media Matters for America lauded a Facebook purge of hundreds of conservative and libertarian pages and user accounts.
This support, of course, only came because of an attack against a common foe. Otherwise, it would have been politics as usual between the incredibly powerful and well-funded agents of progressivism: mudslinging and attempted sabotage.
But in this mudball battle, both sides seem to play the villain.
Soros badmouthed Facebook and Google at Davos in January. Now the leader of his Open Society Foundations, Patrick Gaspard, has accused Facebook of hiring a PR firm to “target and smear” George Soros – which they sort of admitted to – and demands congressional oversight.
But in this mudball battle, both sides seem to play the villain.
The Facebook “Confession”
Facebook’s Head of Communications and Policy, Elliot Schrage – who is now leaving the company – explained the company’s actions the evening before Thanksgiving:
“Did we ask them to do work on George Soros?
Yes. In January 2018, investor and philanthropist George Soros attacked Facebook in a speech at Davos, calling us a ‘menace to society.’ We had not heard such criticism from him before and wanted to determine if he had any financial motivation. Definers [Public Affairs] researched this using public information.
Later, when the ‘Freedom from Facebook’ campaign emerged as a so-called grassroots coalition, the team asked Definers to help understand the groups behind them. They learned that George Soros was funding several of the coalition members. They prepared documents and distributed these to the press to show that this was not simply a spontaneous grassroots movement.”
Facebook did not ask Definers – a D.C. based, right-leaning public relations and opposition research firm – to create or distribute fake news, according to Schrage.
The Soros Attack
Did the PR firm discover and spread information linking Soros money to the anti-Facebook group? Schrage admits as much. But does it qualify as a “smear” if the information is true? Someone’s lying here.
So who’s lying? To some degree or another, probably both sides.
Battle of Villains
The New York Times revealed the work of Definers in a Nov. 14 report listing many of Facebook’s tactics. For anyone paying attention, it’s clear that Facebook has become a data collection and surveillance apparatus – and one with a blatant leftist bias to boot.
On the other hand, Soros has admitted to funding groups that fund Freedom from Facebook. Therefore, it seems that, while the folks at Facebook are no angels, the billionaire is guilty as charged. The NYT story implies the “attack” against Soros is an anti-Semitic smear campaign by mentioning that he’s often the target of such bigotry. What they fail to report, however, is that George Soros spent $3,046,000 on 126,400 shares in the New York Times Company as of May 2018 – as if you needed any further reason to take anything from The NYT with a grain of salt and a shot of penicillin.
Cry to the Government
As most leftists do when they don’t like how things are going, Soros and pals have run crying to the government for intervention.
“Sorry, but this needs independent, congressional oversight,” claims Gaspard. And from the landing page of Freedom from Facebook’s home on the web:
“TELL THE FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION: IT'S TIME TO BREAK UP FACEBOOK'S MONOPOLY.”
Ah yes, the FTC, a federal agency that shouldn’t even exist – thank you very much for that, Woodrow Wilson and your Democratic majority in both houses!
They would also like to somehow make the social media platform “safe for democracy.” Let’s translate that out of doublespeak: “Facebook abuses its users, but we’re too lazy to simply move platforms. The Government should make them do what we want them to!”
How, exactly, is Facebook a monopoly? There are various methods of online communication not owned or controlled by the company. So, what’s the solution? Jump ship. Leaving the platform is the simple answer. Move to another medium, or, better yet, just stay off social media to begin with. Am I the only one who remembers a world before Facebook? As I recall, telephones, email, and IRC worked well enough to keep people living outside a reasonable driving distance of each other connected. It would be slow at first, but once the shift gained momentum, FB would likely crumble.
That’s the answer, George, not the nationalization of social media.
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