Well, thanks, asshole. Now everbody knows what those are and can defend against them.James Barnes spoke with the Wall Street Journal over the last three weeks to detail how he helped guide the Trump campaign to use Facebook tools and products to Trump’s advantage. Barnes left Facebook this spring, and says he is now dedicated to using the same digital-ad strategies he helped Trump exploit to get him out of office in 2020.
The Daily Beast
Obviously, no. And particularly since you're doing the opposite now.Barnes told the Journal that he felt pressure while at the company and described in detail how he felt Facebook’s role helped launch Trump to victory. While he says he remains supportive of Facebook’s mission, he said he is uneasy about the reach of the company’s political influence. He told the paper the one question that nags him about his time with Facebook is, “Did I actually do the right thing?”
Zuckerberg isn't stupid. Like any corporation, they're going to grease palms on both sides so they're always in position no matter which side wins.Barnes, a Facebook employee embedded with the campaign and who was once called its “MVP,” took his digital talents to the liberal group Acronym. He came to the organization as it charts out a $75 million plan to help liberals close the gap with Trump online.
“I was absolutely crushed the morning after the election,” Barnes said on Acronym’s podcast, FWIW.
[...]
Barnes, previously a Republican, supported Trump’s campaign through Facebook’s program to help political candidates use the platform. Hillary Clinton also had support from Facebook.
Vice
Keep telling yourself that.“It just was not adopted on the left as it was on the right,” [Tatenda Musapatike, a staffer who worked with Democrats' campaigns] said of Facebook’s efforts. “There were established ways of doing things and I think Democrats were really, really cautious to change — to, I think, our detriment.”
The boot-strapped Trump campaign, however, embraced Barnes’ guidance. It pumped out torrents of cheap, at-times divisive ads to highly targeted audiences, spreading its message and culling small-dollar fundraising.
[...]
Facebook will be even more central to the 2020 contest. Trump has vastly outspent his Democratic rivals so far, crushing fundraising records and enticing users to share all-important personal data.
[...]
“One thing I want to be really clear on is that I voted for Hillary Clinton,” he added. “I despised Donald Trump from the moment I learned of him. And my commitment in the 2016 election had much less to do with supporting him or his platform and a lot more to do with supporting Facebook’s commitment to democracy.”
Gee...let me think...what could they be talking about?President Donald Trump hosted a previously undisclosed dinner with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook board member Peter Thiel at the White House in October, the company told NBC News on Wednesday.
[...]
Zuckerberg also gave a speech at Georgetown University the week before, detailing his company’s commitment to free speech, and its resistance to calls for the company to crack down on misinformation in political advertisements.
[...]
It is unclear why the meeting was not made public or what Trump, Zuckerberg and [Facebook board member Peter] Thiel discussed.
[...]
The dinner was the second meeting between Zuckerberg and Trump in a month. Zuckerberg also met with the president in the Oval Office during a September visit to the capital.
NBC
Probably never batted an eye at the contradiction.A major donor to Trump’s campaign, Thiel is also the chairman of Palantir, a private data technology company that has become one of the largest recipients of government defense contracts with the United States government since Trump took office.
Thiel famously bankrolled an invasion of privacy lawsuit that effectively bankrupted the gossip website Gawker. Zuckerberg’s speech at Georgetown, which he delivered on the same trip in which he met with Trump, was titled “Standing for Voice and Free Expression.”
What's the quid pro quo?On Wednesday, Trump and Apple CEO Tim Cook toured an Apple manufacturing plant in Austin, Texas.
Trump and Cook have maintained a very public working relationship as the Apple CEO seeks to keep Apple products exempt from the president’s tariffs on China.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
UPDATE:
Sorry, I can't get to the WSJ because it's behind a pay wall. If I find another article that quotes more of it, I'll post below.
UPDATE:
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