Facebook executive admits the platform helped Trump win in leaked memo
He also says that “the Russians” helped stoke tensions between Blue Lives Matter and Black Lives Matter protesters.
JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images
The New York Times has obtained an internal memo posted by Facebook executive (and Zuckerberg confidant) Andrew Bosworth in which he outright admits that targeted advertising was a key factor in the election of Donald Trump in 2020.
In the post, titled “Thoughts for 2020,” Bosworth asserts that Cambridge Analytica, the analytics firm held responsible for Trump’s election, were “snake oil salespeople,” making it clear that, in his eyes, Facebook was responsible for getting Donald Trump elected. (“Was Facebook responsible for Donald Trump getting elected? I think the answer is yes,” he writes.)
He notes that Trump “just did unbelievable work” in promoting his advertising campaign, calling his use of “custom audiences, video, ecommerce, and fresh creative” the “high water mark” of digital ad campaigns.
Elsewhere in the post, Bosworth admits that Russians were responsible for hosting both Blue Lives Matter and Black Lives Matter rallies on the same day. “The Russians worked to exploit existing divisions in the American public for example by hosting Black Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter protest events in the same city on the same day,” he writes, “the people who shows [sic] up to those events were real even if the event coordinator was not.” Read the entire terrifying memo on NYT.