The rivalry between Facebook and Google also involves fake news. Facebook hired an American PR company, also based in Italy, to discredit Google by spreading false information about privacy. Once exposed, Facebook had to admit to the wrongdoing.
The story is not one of those incredible ones and the protagonists are the most famous Internet companies in the world. On one side there is Facebook, the villain, and on the other, Google, the victim. The case. According to authoritative American newspapers and websites, USA Today e The Daily Beast, Facebook allegedly hired Burston-Marsteller, a multinational PR firm also present in Italy, to spread false news about Google’s privacy.
It’s curious, but not coincidental, that Facebook worries about Google’s privacy right after the accusation that the same social network received, namely privacy violation risk. An action that reminds us much more closely of what happens in politics and which, obviously, given what is at stake, even the Internet player had no fear or indignation in carrying it out.
As often happens, however, lies and forgery have short legs. When the PR firm’s representative proposed sending news about Google and poor privacy management to a blogger, he received a firm refusal. Consider that the same messenger of false news had proposed writing a post that was to be simply published. A practice not entirely unknown, to tell the truth, which many implement successfully.
The proposing company was immediately unmasked and along with it especially the principal, Facebook, which facing the evidence and flagrant wrongdoing, could not hide.
In 2006, Wal-Mart was also exposed in a similar episode
The fact could be compared to what happened to Wal-Mart which in 2006 launched a blog called “Wal-Marting Across America.” The blog was supposed to host posts by two American workers forced to travel across the States, who were spending nights in Wal-Mart parking lots. In reality, the blog was a “bluff” as it was managed by a PR firm, Edelman, which was unmasked. On that occasion, but apparently history repeats itself, the PR world suffered a bad blow to its style and the veracity of word-of-mouth marketing was questioned. In the end, it was above all Wal-Mart that came out badly and the blog was closed.
Facebook and Google always at war?
The main episode of this article remains one of the most disturbing, perhaps also because it features the two biggest Internet players. Considering the ongoing war, this could be one of the many shots fired every day by the two companies but which sometimes, as happened in this case, not only miss the target but cause damage to the image that only other operations, hopefully this time without the “hoax” label, can help recover.
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