In October, a former Facebook employee leaked a trove of documents detailing potential issues at the company.
Facebook lobbyists attempted to smear her reputation among politicians in Washington, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Those efforts appear to have been at least partially effective.
In October, former Facebook employee-turned-whistleblower Frances Haugen shared documents that revealed several potential issues at the social media giant.
Facebook's own research showed that Instagram is bad for teen mental health. Other documents showed the company prioritized parts of the world differently for content moderation, which sometimes had major consequences. For example, in Myanmar, where Facebook was blamed in part for not moderating hate speech, posts led to real-world violence against the Muslim Rohingya population in 2018.
After Haugen appeared on CBS' "60 Minutes" in early October, Facebook went on the offensive against its former employee, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.
Facebook's Washington-based lobbyists and public relations staff are said to have spread the word among Republican lawmakers, advocacy groups, and Conservative media that Haugen had "partisan motives," the paper said.
Moreover, Facebook lobbyists reportedly attempted to sow discord between Democrat and Republican lawmakers by feeding each party different stories in response to Haugen's leak, the paper said.
To Republicans, the WSJ reported, Haugen was "trying to help Democrats" —...
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