Facebook reportedly hired a PR firm to write negative articles about Apple, Google

Facebook has been under a lot of scrutinies for the last couple of years, for the way it handled **Russian interference** on its social network. In October 2017, the company took a step to deal with all the external criticism, but it was definitely not an ideal one. [caption id=“attachment_5547491” align=“alignnone” width=“1024”]  Facebook.[/caption] According to a recently published article by The New York Times, where the publication interviewed around 50 Facebook employees, it was found that in around October 2017, Facebook expanded its relationship with a Washington-based public affairs firm, Definers, to write negative articles about its rivals Apple and Google. Facebook was apparently using the public affairs company to push the idea that liberal financier George Soros was behind a growing anti-Facebook movement. Meanwhile, it downplayed the impact of Russian interference on Facebook. Reportedly, Facebook and the PR company continued to work together to handle numerous scandals that Facebook was a part of, over the past three years, including Russian interference and the Cambridge Analytica scandal in March. Besides this scathing revelation, The New York Times **report** also claimed that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had ordered the employees in his company to **only use Android phones** . This decision was apparently taken after Facebook was criticised by Apple CEO Tim Cook for its approach towards user privacy.