Facebook board backs COO Sheryl Sandberg over George Soros investigation

Facebook
chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg testifies during a Senate
Intelligence Committee hearing concerning foreign influence
operations’ use of social media platforms, on Capitol Hill,
September 5, 2018 in Washington, DC.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images

• Facebook’s board has come out in support of COO Sheryl
  Sandberg.
• Sandberg has been under heavy criticism over her
  involvement in efforts to investigate George Soros and critics
  of Facebook.
• “When a well-known and outspoken investor attacks your
  company publicly, it is fair and appropriate to do this level
  of diligence,” the board said.

Facebook’s board has chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg’s
back.

In a letter, the Silicon Valley tech giant’s board supported
Sandberg’s controversial request to investigate George Soros and
whether the billionaire investor philanthropist had shorted the
company’s stock after calling the social network a “menace to
society.”

“To be clear, Sandberg‘s question was entirely
appropriate given her role as COO,” it said in a letter on
Wednesday. “When a well-known and outspoken investor attacks your
company publicly, it is fair and appropriate to do this level of
diligence.”

You can
read the full letter on CNET here. 

The letter was sent by Facebook’s general counsel Colin Stretch
to Patrick Gaspard, president of Soros’s Open Society
Foundations. It comes as Sandberg weathers unprecedented scrutiny
and criticism over her support of the Soros attacks, and her
broader role in deflecting criticism and crises amid Facebook’s
mounting scandals — as detailed in a bombshell investigation from
The New York Times.

The letter said Sandberg was being truthful when she said
she did not know that the social network hired that
public-relations firm, Definers, to explore Soros’s criticisms of
the company. Facebook has been criticized for playing into
anti-Semitic tropes, after a public relation firm hired by
the company attempted to smear critics by linking them to liberal
billionaire George Soros.

We’ve reached out to Facebook for comment and will update when we
hear back.

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