11 years ago, Facebook was caught red-handed after it hired a prominent public relations firm to try to place fake news on websites harshly criticizing Google's privacy practices.

In 2018, it hired the public relations firm Definers to do research on critics of the company, including billionaire philanthropist George Soros. Elliot Schrage, the company's longtime head of communications, took the blame for authorizing the hiring of Definers and similar companies and left Facebook. But that didn't stop Facebook's corporate culture of promoting fake news to influence the opinions of internet users.