• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, November 30, 2018

In a carefully worded blog post, earlier this month, Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer said she was unaware of the fact the company had hired Definers Public Affairs -- the Republican consultancy that sought to undermine Facebook’s critics by linking them to Soros.

Immediately after that denial, Sandberg added: “I have great respect for George Soros -- and the anti-Semitic conspiracy theories against him are abhorrent.”

Yet, in response to new reports in The New York Times and BuzzFeed, Facebook is admitting that Sandberg specifically requested research regarding Soros’ investment activity.

“Sheryl sent an email asking if Mr. Soros had shorted Facebook’s stock,” a Facebook spokesperson told both news publications.

The spokesperson was careful to note that Definers had already begun its work on behalf of Facebook before Sandberg made the request. “That research was already underway,” the spokesperson said.

The shifting story raises new questions about Sandberg’s involvement in Definers’s opposition research, and whether her original statement on the matter was intentionally misleading.

Long considered to be the proverbial “adult in the room” among Facebook’s top management, Sandberg’s reputation remains key to the company’s stability.

The whole saga stems from a report in The New York Times earlier this month, which suggested Sandberg and cofounder-CEO Mark Zuckerberg wavered over whether to tell the world about Facebook’s Russian hacking problem.

In response to that original report, Facebook flatly denied the suggestion.

“The story asserts that we knew about Russian activity as early as the spring of 2016, but were slow to investigate it at every turn,” the company insisted at the time. “This is not true.”

The same story also revealed that Facebook had hired Definers. Despite defending its relationship with the Definers, Facebook immediately severed ties with the firm.

About a week later, Elliot Schrage, Facebook’s departing head of public policy and communications, took responsibility for hiring Definers, and further defended the decision.

“I believe it would be irresponsible and unprofessional for us not to understand the backgrounds and potential conflicts of interest of our critics,” Schrage wrote in a memo.

In his memo, Schrage also said Facebook specifically asked Definers to look into Soros and negative comments he had been making about the company.

During a speech at Davos earlier this year, Soros characterized Facebook as a “menace to society,” Schrage recalled. “We had not heard such criticism from him before and wanted to determine if he had any financial motivation,” he added.

Since the original Times story broke, critics have accused Facebook of playing into an anti-Semitic narrative against Soros. Schrage, for his part, insisted that nothing could be further from the truth.

“Being Jewish is a core part of who I am and our company stands firmly against hate,” Schrage insisted in the memo. “The idea that our work has been interpreted as anti-Semitic is abhorrent to me -- and deeply personal.”

In his memo, Schrage -- who reports directly to Sandberg -- insisted that neither she nor Zuckerberg had any knowledge of Facebook’s relationship with Definers.