OOPS: Facebook Exec Who Exonerated Russia in Election Meddling Forced to Issue Mea Culpa

Well, he got a retweet and a thanks from the president for his efforts, at least.

Rob Goldman, Facebook’s vice president of ads contradicted the efforts of his company, as far as their cooperation with authorities investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

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Last Friday, Goldman launched a Twitter tirade against the coverage of Russian interference, after it was announced that a grand jury for special counsel Robert Mueller’s team had handed down indictments for wire fraud and identity theft against 13 Russian nationals and 3 Russian companies.

In that Twitter thread, Goldman suggested that he’d seen all the targeted ads on the Facebook platform, and that the main goal was not to sway the election. He also said that most of the ads came after the election.

In reality, the campaign began somewhere in 2014.

So thrilled was Trump that somebody besides him was going to bat and vouching for the integrity of Mother Russia, that he gave Goldman a hearty shout-out of support.

Apparently, Goldman’s superiors have smacked his hands, and today, he’s issued an apology for putting forth is own opinion, with no acknowledgment that special counsel is privy to more information than he is, on the matter.

“I wanted to apologize for having tweeted my own view about Russian interference without having it reviewed by anyone internally. The tweets were my own personal view and not Facebook’s. I conveyed my view poorly,” Rob Goldman said on Monday, according to Wired.

“The Special Counsel has far more information about what happened [than] I do—so seeming to contradict his statements was a serious mistake on my part,” he continued.

“To those of you who have reached out this weekend to offer your support, thank you. It means more than you know. And to all of you who have worked so hard over the last six months to demonstrate that we understand our responsibility to prevent abuse on Facebook—and are working hard to do better in the future—my deepest apologies.”

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Russia’s Internet Research Agency – aka… the “troll farm”… is alleged to be behind a slew of fake ads, fake news sites (Has anybody seen anything from PRNTLY, lately?), ridiculous memes of a youthful Trump riding an American Bald Eagle, or Jesus guiding Trump’s hand, or random, fake Twitter names (the egg people), all promoting Trump hashtags and conspiracy theories.

Some, however, were more oriented towards creating chaos among citizens, promoting Black Lives Matter rallies, or other types of events, sure to get somebody else upset.

There may have been a clear effort to influence the election, but there was just as much intended to make Americans hate each other, thereby destroying those internal bonds of unity.

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