Just doing her job, no doubt: The Punctured Myth of Sheryl Sandberg | The New Republic

Among the targets of Facebook’s own propaganda campaign was George Soros, the financier who funds many activist groups. Facebook targeted Soros over his behind the scenes funding of fake “grass roots” activist organizations (known as “astroturf”) aligned against Facebook.

‘Later, when the “Freedom from Facebook” campaign emerged as a so-called grassroots coalition, the team asked Definers to help understand the groups behind them. They learned that George Soros was funding several of the coalition members. They prepared documents and distributed these to the press to show that this was not simply a spontaneous grassroots movement.’

Astroturf’ing operations are common in propaganda campaigns, so common that most “grass roots” groups are likely fake and are instead a group of people duped into acting on behalf of those in power. Astroturf operations have been covered extensively on this blog.

As Facebook operates the world’s largest propaganda platform, it should not be a surprise that every known method of propaganda messaging is used by Facebook itself to attack others. Nor should it be a surprise that Soros was behind some astroturf operations. This is how the world works today, where we are flooded with a constant stream of propaganda messaging 24 x 7 – much of we do not even realize is messaging intended to get us to adopt someone else’s perspective.