A Facebook executive learned a valuable lesson about using Twitter after he publicly contradicted the Mueller investigation
- On Friday, Facebook's VP of ads Rob Goldman tweeted about key facts of the Russian interference campaign in the US presidential election that "were not well understood."
- Goldman's tweet made it sound like they were contradicting the work done by special counsel Robert Mueller and his team, who are investigating the full extent of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
- After Facebook issued a separate statement on Sunday, Goldman published an apology on Monday evening, saying "the Special Counsel has far more information about what happened [than] I do."
"Never tweet" is a common refrain used by people on Twitter. It's essentially used to encourage people to think before they tweet.
Facebook VP of ads Rob Goldman learned this lesson the hard way over the long holiday weekend.
On Friday, roughly eight hours after special counsel Robert Mueller published a 37-page indictment of Russian operatives detailing alleged interference in the 2016 US presidential election, Goldman sounded off on Twitter, despite getting no kind of approval from Facebook's communications staff or anyone else from upper management.
The problem with Goldman's tweets, basically, was that they seemed to contradict the actual work done by Mueller and his investigative team. Goldman's tweets analyzed the Russian interference solely through the lens of advertisements, not taking into account the vast amounts of information Mueller has, especially compared to Goldman or anyone at Facebook.
Goldman and other executives at Facebook didn't realize the error in these tweets until the following day, when President Trump cited Goldman's tweets twice in the span of five minutes:
As the social media company continued to face blowback for the tweets, Joel Kaplan, Facebook's VP of public policy, released the following statement on Sunday night: "Nothing we found contradicts the Special Counsel's indictments. Any suggestion otherwise is wrong."
On Monday, Goldman posted a similar message to his fellow Facebook employees. Here's his full statement, courtesy of Wired:
"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."
In short, Goldman learned a valuable lesson: Never tweet.