A new week in Facebook begins

Did you have a good Thanksgiving weekend? Because Facebook didn't.

Shall we start with their Black Friday news dump? Normally, dumping bad news on Friday helps to bury those ledes, as days can pass before major news outlets are able to properly cover them. Unfortunately for Facebook, though, news media organizations have adapted to this technique, a special favourite of the Trump administration, so they were primed and ready to cover whatever happened on Black Friday, including this story, as reported here by Slate:

On the day before Thanksgiving, Facebook published a blog post in which COO Sheryl Sandberg and outgoing head of communications Elliot Schrage admitted to lapses in their work with a Republican opposition research firm called Definers. The New York Times had reported in a bombshell investigation the week before that the company hired Definers to create media narratives linking anti-Facebook protestors to liberal billionaire George Soros and criticizing competitors for unsavory business practices. Facebook severed its ties with Definers after the story, but the company pushed back on the investigation by arguing that it contained “a number of inaccuracies.”

The company is now confirming that much of what the Times reported is true, at least when it comes to Definers. In the post, Schrage disclosed that he had decided to hire Definers and was partially directing its efforts on behalf of the company. “Some of this work is being characterized as opposition research, but I believe it would be irresponsible and unprofessional for us not to understand the backgrounds and potential conflicts of interest of our critics,” Schrage wrote. “This work can be used internally to inform our messaging and where appropriate it can be shared with reporters.” In the immediate aftermath of the Times article, Sandberg and CEO Mark Zuckerberg both claimed that they didn’t know that Facebook had hired Definers. Zuckerberg further sought to distance Facebook from Definers by labeling it as a typical “D.C.-type firm” and implying that he did not approve of its tactics. However, Schrage asserted in his post, “Mark has asked us to reevaluate how we work with communications consultants. It’s not about Definers. It is about us, not them.”

[...]

Schrage finally hinted that he was unhappy with how Facebook’s communications team had been scapegoated in the aftermath of the Times piece. “Many people on the Communications team feel under attack from the press and even from their colleagues,” he wrote. “I’m deeply disappointed that so much internal discussion and finger pointing has become public. This is a serious threat to our culture and ability to work together in difficult times.”

[...]

Sandberg additionally elaborated on the extent to which she knew of Definers’s work. The day after the Times published its investigation, Sandberg wrote in a Facebook post, “I did not know we hired [Definers] or about the work they were doing, but I should have.” In the Thanksgiving-eve blog post, however, Sandberg clarified that she did not remember working with Definers, but that some of its materials had crossed her desk. “Some of their work was incorporated into materials presented to me and I received a small number of emails where Definers was referenced,” she disclosed.  

Remember last week, when I asserted that Zuckerberg and Sandberg were lying liars and shouldn't be trusted at all? With basically everything they said as Definers damage control now admitted to have been false, I stand by those assertions.

Don't worry, though; Facebook's very bad weekend was only just getting started, as reported by The Guardian:

Parliament has used its legal powers to seize internal Facebook documents in an extraordinary attempt to hold the US social media giant to account after chief executive Mark Zuckerberg repeatedly refused to answer MPs’ questions.

The cache of documents is alleged to contain significant revelations about Facebook decisions on data and privacy controls that led to the Cambridge Analytica scandal. It is claimed they include confidential emails between senior executives, and correspondence with Zuckerberg.

Damian Collins, the chair of the culture, media and sport select committee, invoked a rare parliamentary mechanism to compel the founder of a US software company, Six4Three, to hand over the documents during a business trip to London. In another exceptional move, parliament sent a serjeant at arms to his hotel with a final warning and a two-hour deadline to comply with its order. When the software firm founder failed to do so, it’s understood he was escorted to parliament. He was told he risked fines and even imprisonment if he didn’t hand over the documents.

“We are in uncharted territory,” said Collins, who also chairs an inquiry into fake news. “This is an unprecedented move but it’s an unprecedented situation. We’ve failed to get answers from Facebook and we believe the documents contain information of very high public interest.”

At the risk of sounding like a stuck record.... I did say that Facebook's woes were going to result in jail time for someone. It hasn't happened yet, but I still stand by that prediction; it's looking more and more like a matter of "when," rather than "if."

The one bright spot for FB is that their stock, having taken a pounding over the last year (although it bizarrely peaked in July, for reasons which were never clear) has rebounded slightly in Monday trading; I'd guess that some optimists are hoping that the worst is behind them. That looks like a very bad bet to me, though; I expect Facebook's problems to get worse, not better, over the coming year, for the simple reason that they're not actually willing to admit error and embrace change. The whole Definers Media debacle should be all the proof you ever needed of that, with FB hitting out at critics while frustrating efforts to hold them accountable for their mistakes.