Heads ought to roll at Facebook over the Soros smear - starting with Zuck's

• Facebook's public relations firm this summer tried to discredit the company's critics by linking them to financier George Soros, The New York Times reported .
• The tactic has antisemitic overtones; far-right groups have long peddled similar conspiracy theories in which Soros, a Jew who survived the Holocaust, is the shadowy figure behind all kinds of different policies, groups, and activities.
• Those broader Soros conspiracy theories reportedly animated the alleged gunman in the recent mass shooting in Pittsburgh and the man who last month allegedly sent pipe bombs to Soros and other left-wing critics of President Trump.
• Company CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Thursday he wasn't aware of Facebook's relationship with the PR firm or its activities, and the social networking giant has now cancelled its contract with the firm.
• But Zuckerberg and Facebook declined to repudiate the firm's use of the Soros smear or acknowledge its antisemitic links.
• The shameful incident ought to lead to resignations at the top of Facebook, starting with Zuckerberg and his top lieutenant, Sheryl Sandberg.

There's been good reason for a while now to think that Facebook is a net negative force in the world.

But playing fast and loose with antisemitism is an outrageous new low for the company. And heads ought to roll at the company because of it - starting with CEO Mark Zuckerberg and chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg who reportedly oversaw Facebook's effort to discredit critics, including through a well-worn antisemitic tactic.

Antisemitism is real, rising, and dangerous. You don't have to look any farther than the mass shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh last month to see that. It's not something to play around with.

Yet that's exactly what Facebook did. Worse yet, when given a chance Wednesday to own up and repudiate what the company did, Zuckerberg tried instead to explain it away.

This summer, as the company faced growing criticism over the Cambridge Analytica scandal and other fiascos, Facebook hired Definers Public Affairs to try to turn attention elsewhere, The New York Times reported in a blockbuster article Wednesday. A key part of Definers' strategy was to link the coalition of public interest groups that had come together to urge regulators to check the company's power to billionaire financier George Soros, according to the report.

Definers distributed to reporters a document that charged that Soros was the behind-the-scenes backer of the groups and urged members of the media to dig into the financial connections between him and the groups.

The Soros smear has a long and deadly history

In a vacuum, that might not seem so terrible. There's a lot of money flowing from wealthy individuals and organizations into Washington lobbying groups, political committees, and politicians' campaign coffers in an effort to influence public policy. On its face, it's not illegitimate to question where particular groups are getting their funding or if powerful people or companies are using them to advance their own interests. And Soros has actually taken public stances against Facebook.

But we don't live in a vacuum. There are longstanding efforts on the right and among antisemitic groups to paint Soros, a Hungarian-born Jew who survived the Holocaust before making his fortune, as the shadowy figure behind all sorts of wild conspiracies. Most recently, he's been accused of being the behind-the-scenes funder of the caravan of migrants that has been slowly making its way to the southern US border.

You can draw a straight line to such conspiracy theories about Soros from the centuries old antisemitic tropes about rich Jewish financiers running the world and secretly undermining the people and government of the countries in which they live.

Read this: Mark Zuckerberg's spectacular failure of leadership shows why some Facebook investors are desperate to fire him

Those vile conspiracies are not simply discussion points among the misguided or misinformed in random internet chat rooms. They've taken hold among racists and bigots - including on Facebook - and have had real-world consequences.

Soros himself has been the target of multiple death threats, Patrick Gaspard, the president of the financier's Open Society Foundations, said in a letter to Sandberg on Wednesday. Indeed, Soros was among the liberal critics of President Trump who were sent a pipe bomb last month. Those bomb were allegedly sent by Cesar Sayoc, who was reportedly obsessed with Soros and Soros-related conspiracy theories.

Similarly, the alleged gunman who killed 11 people at a synagogue in Pittsburgh last month was also reportedly animated by conspiracy theories involving Soros.

Zuck passed the buck

But the conspiracy theories involving Soros date to long before the caravan started heading northward or the pipe bombs started being mailed out to him and others. When Definers started peddling its own Soros conspiracy theory this summer on Facebook's behalf, the broader antisemitic trope had long been established. A company that had any ethical compass at all wouldn't have gone there - and wouldn't have authorized its public relations firm to do so.

Facebook announced Thursday that it had cancelled its contract with Definers. On a conference call with journalists later in the day, Zuckerberg said he hadn't known about the relationship with the PR firm until he read about it in The Times' report and ended it soon after. He also seemed to imply that Sandberg likewise hadn't known about the relationship with Definers.

It's hard to know what to make of Zuckerberg's assertion that he hadn't known about Definers. But either way it looks bad. Either he was oblivious to a major public relations effort that had obvious implications for the company's reputation and perception or he's someone who oversaw an antisemitic smear campaign and is now lying about it.

It's even harder to believe that Sandberg didn't know and approve of the effort. She oversees Facebook's business, and its PR group directly reports to her. Indeed, The Times reported that she oversaw the company's broader effort to hit back at its critics.

At some point, though, it doesn't matter whether they knew about the Soros smear. They head the company. The buck is supposed to stop with them.

Where's the repudiation or the sense of shame?

And regardless of their prior knowledge, there's something even more appalling about Facebook and Zuckerberg's response to The Time's report - they didn't repudiate the Soros smear.

On the call, Zuckerberg said he has "tremendous respect" for the financier, although he disagrees with him about his stance on Facebook. The company hadn't intended to attack "an individual," he said, but to call attention to the fact that anti-Facebook groups weren't simply grass-root efforts but were getting funding from him.

But not once did Zuckerberg acknowledge the antisemitic overtones of that effort or the fact that variations of that same smear have had deadly consequences.

Facebook has been under fire for much of the last two years over everything from security and privacy violations to the spread of misinformation. If you had any questions about whether the company's leadership has the moral and ethical chops to contend with these society rattling problems, Zuckerberg's refusal to repudiate the Soros smear was all the answer you needed.

Now read:

• Facebook's board says it pushed Zuck to 'move faster' to tackle Russian election interference
• Facebook confirmed Mark Zuckerberg's beef with Apple CEO Tim Cook in an official company statement
• Facebook hits back at The New York Times, pointing out the 'inaccuracies' in its blockbuster report on leadership missteps
• Facebook cuts ties with Definers, the PR firm that reportedly helped it blame George Soros for the anti-Facebook movement