From The Charleston Gazette-Mail:
Turns out Facebook, the revolutionary social media network that insisted it is different from older industries, made some not-so-revolutionary decisions when its stock and public perception suffered a dip.
When it became known the Russians were operating a large-scale, fake news campaign on the social media behemoth to warp reality before and after the 2016 election, Facebook turned to some traditional solutions, like hiring a Washington, D.C., lobbying firm to do opposition research on its critics, according to reports in The New York Times.
That firm, Definers Public Affairs, has its own division of weaponized, questionable news production that got Facebook tangled up with right-wing conspiracy theorists who blame George Soros for, well, everything.
There seems to be some confusion at the top about who even hired the group, though late last week Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg allegedly took the blame, according to sources who spoke with the Times, while Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said neither he nor Sandberg really knew what Definers was doing.