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Facebook reportedly discredited critics by linking them to George Soros
- cagenut 8y agoas long as peter thiel's on the board you generally have to assume they're doing at least this level of scummy shit.
- saltedonion 8y agoAny stories to back this up? Sounds interesting. Personally have a lot of respect for PT’s investment views
- jstankewicz 8y agoThe one that jumps out at me is his association with James O'Keefe (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel#Support_for_political_activism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel#Support_for_politi...). That seems most salient to this story. I won't deny that he seems to be a very skilled investor though.
- dospunk 8y agoSkilled investor != Good person
- jstankewicz 8y agoOh, for sure. Just agreeing with the above comment on that front.
- sodosopa 8y agoNice, new account. Welcome.
- luckydata 8y agoThis is like saying you like Stalin for his pragmatic approach to population control.
- foolzcrow 8y agoSoros admitted he worked for Hitler as a paid Jewish snitch. He sent other Jewish families to the oven for money and said he had no regrets. it's on video I've seen it and it's not hard to find.
- misiti3780 8y agothis comment is ridiculous - what could you possibly have to back that up ? just because you do not agree with his political view doesn't mean everything he does is with bad intentions and "scummy".
- lucretian 8y agothe entire saga with gawker media, for one thing.
- misiti3780 8y agojust so we are clear, you do not like that fact that he paid hogans legal costs ?
- jhowell 8y agoI think that's taking the teeth out of it a little bit. I believe that he began working for Hogan in secret seeking revenge for being outed.
- xienze 8y agoSure, but that doesn't change the fact that Hogan's case was a legitimate one, he just lacked the funding to see it through. AND you're forgetting that Gawker could've avoided the whole thing if they had obeyed the earlier court order to take the video down.
- FireBeyond 8y agoHogan had agreed with Gawker to take part ownership of Gawker including revenues, and then that was reneged upon after meeting with Thiel's (his) lawyers again, and similar after multiple points of near settlement. The damages were then upped to ridiculous amounts. Financial / economic (not emotional) damages were listed at $50M. Bollea's net worth, at it's peak, was $30-40M (edit: from $25M), and is now estimated at $8M - though most of that has been stripped by divorce, before any of this happened. I am not sure how someone whose likely career income didn't reach $50M can now, in retirement, state that he suffered $50M in purely economic damages from this (remember, the emotional damage is separate, as is the punitive) - from what? Not from residuals on old WWF repeats - he would still be entitled to these. The occasional celebrity endorsement? I can't see any realistic justification that his earning power for the rest of his life would total $50M, let alone that $50M only covers the fraction of his income that he _lost_ because of this.
- jandrese 8y agoHas any George Soros conspiracy theory ever panned out? Hearing his name come up is a bright red flag that the person you're talking to has had his brain poisoned by right wing nutjobs.
- foolzcrow 8y agoThere is literally a video of Soros saying he sold other Jews out to death camps for money and had no regrets about it. I'm a lifelong Democrat if you support Soros you defend a self admitted paid Nazi employee
- danharaj 8y agoThere's a reason why George Soros is singled out among liberal billionaires by certain right wing groups, and it certainly isn't evidence.
- kurthr 8y agoI assume you mean singled out by Russian trolls because of Putin's dislike for him?
- danharaj 8y agoNo. It's a tradition far older than that.
- asianthrowaway 8y agoIf that were true, why George Soros and not other liberal jewish billionaires, who no doubt exist? I think it's absurd to state that he's not being singled out due to his political activities.
- danharaj 8y agoWell, first of all, something like antisemitism doesn't have to be self-consistent to be a thing. Second of all, actually, other Jewish billionaires are also targeted: https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/28/politics/tom-steyer-mccarthy-tweet/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/28/politics/tom-steyer-mccarthy-... I don't understand what you're so skeptical about. What is the standard of evidence for antisemitism you're seeking? I'm not going to find many mainstream adherents to Soros conspiracy theories that are going to flat-out admit it, am I?
- ada1981 8y agoIf you work for Facebook, what do you do in this situation? Can you all please just leave? Is there some acceptable amount of collateral damage for you to maintain your lifestyle? I’ll personally help you reconnect to your purpose and go out and live a life you’ve dreamed of. Go start a company better than Facebook and hire all the people.
- Mc_Big_G 8y agoIt's pretty clear at this point that if you still work for Facebook you don't care whether they do evil or not and, if you do, the money trumps your morals.
- tzakrajs 8y agoCould be a way to advertise that you like collecting money for dubious causes.
- djohnston 8y agoi try to be respectful but this is some bs virtue signaling devoid of any nuance and steeped in economic privilege that you were likely fortunate enough to grow up with. you have no right to look down on people working a job you perceive as morally dubious for money. and you seem to think that every job at fb is about glueing eyes to ads. what about people who work on cybersecurity, or counterterrorism, or combating child exploitation? there are thousands of positions where you make measurably good impact on the world. EDIT: you certainly can look down on people for whatever, i just don't think it's justified in this case.
- jimjansen1 8y agoI bet there were Nazi's whose jobs were to feed the poor in Berlin. Doesn't immunize them from what the rest of them were doing.
- djohnston 8y agoyeah that's not a false equivalence or anything
- api 8y agoWhat is the deal with George Soros anyway and why is he such a bogey man to the far right?
- danharaj 8y agoHe's Jewish and a billionaire.
- laretluval 8y agoThat must be why he’s been condemned by such noted antisemites as the Israeli foreign ministry... https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-hungary-soros/israel-backs-hungary-says-financier-soros-is-a-threat-idUSKBN19V1J4 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-hungary-soros/isra...
- danharaj 8y agoAre you saying that it is physically impossible for the Israeli government to collaborate with antisemites?
- astrodust 8y agoMoney and power have a way of seeing past such trivialities as prejudice and/or principles.
- smt88 8y agoCase in point: Zuckerberg and Sandberg
- atribd 8y agoWell I think most people would find it curious for the jewish state to be antisemitic. At that point I think we should then officially redefine antisemitism to the meaning it seems to have acquired today, which is any criticism or negative comment aimed at a person of jewish descent.
- 8y ago
- travisoneill1 8y agoInteresting difference in opinions between this thread and this recent post about FB needing to censor it's platform: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18458938 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18458938 Not sure why the surprise. Pretty obvious that FB (and all other entities) will use it's power only to advance its own interests. > People just submitted it. I don't know why. They "trust me" Dumb fucks. - Mark Zuckerberg
- groth 8y agothis is embarassing
- throwawaybokbok 8y agoAs a detoxing right-winger, this is deeply evil and deeply effective.
- InTheArena 8y agoJust like the last election, they literally played both sides of this. For thoose of you who don't know, Soros is a the Koch boogyman of the alt-right, and the frequent conspiracy charges against him start with the fact that he is Jewish. "Facebook employed a Republican opposition-research firm to discredit activist protesters, in part by linking them to the liberal financier George Soros. It also tapped its business relationships, lobbying a Jewish civil rights group to cast some criticism of the company as anti-Semitic. In Washington, allies of Facebook, including Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate leader, intervened on its behalf. And Ms. Sandberg wooed or cajoled hostile lawmakers, while trying to dispel Facebook’s reputation as a bastion of Bay Area liberalism." In other words, they hired someone to make racist claims, and then hired someone to call anyone who criticized facebook racists. Then they got engaged with political groups on both sides, to play into stereotypes. This is literally the tactics that Putin used in the last election. I wonder who he got it from
- vernie 8y agoThis comment section rules. I love tech.
- abrowne 8y agoThe original source is https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/14/technology/facebook-data-russia-election-racism.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/14/technology/facebook-data-...
- sctb 8y agoDiscussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18453958 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18453958.
- nemild 8y agoI spent the last two years reflecting on FB (was an early employee in social media), and put some reflections on the bubble at Facebook: https://www.nemil.com/tdf/part1-employees.html https://www.nemil.com/tdf/part1-employees.html Management will laud what employees do, show them selective facts that justify their views, and hire/promote those who behave similarly to them. Employees in isolated teams with training in a single function may not realize the broad, unintended effects of their company's work. They'll assume the best of their friends and coworkers, without inquiring into the larger effects they're having.
- mixmastamyk 8y agoAlways found the obsession about Soros odd, how can one guy be at the root of everything wrong in the world, like a comic-book super-villain? Just because he donates to some political causes, like most billionaires?
- didibus 8y agoPeople need simple answers.
- philk10 8y agoSome background - https://www.forbes.com/sites/melikkaylan/2018/03/01/why-populists-hate-george-soros-and-how-it-started/#51e4566513d0 https://www.forbes.com/sites/melikkaylan/2018/03/01/why-popu...
- justaman 8y agoSoros is the equivalent to the Koch brothers. The older I get the more I realize the Left and the Right are the same damn people.
- beaconstudios 8y agothey really are. Almost everything in the left or right has its mirror in the other side. This is why I think it's so unproductive/harmful when we move further from compromise and closer to a partisan divide - neither side wants to balance the priorities between their interest groups and the other side's, as you would do in a healthy society.
- matt4077 8y agoThere's a big difference in that Soros spends his money on causes, as an actual food for hungry people and actual teachers to teach actual students. Whereas the Kochs are far more focussed on US domestic politics. Soros has become somewhat more active since 2016, but he's quite upset that it has come so far that his values need defending in the US, and that there are billions wasted in zero-sum political campaigns.
- cat199 8y agoshady spin issues aside - because some people criticize george soros for antisemitic reasons, automatically all criticism of george soros is antisemitic? then again this opinion is from ADL which states that anti zionism is automatically anti semitism (effectively calling huge numbers of hassidic jews anti semitic) oops, i criticized. must be a nazi.
- qbaqbaqba 8y agoSo, were the critics connected to Open Society Foundation on any other Soros controlled organisation? Also, describing him as a philanthropist and not mentioning his shady businesses like causing "Black Wednesday" or what he did to Thailand is... curious. And the fact he's Jewish doesn't make looking into his actions racist.