NEW YORK (AP) — Facebook's outgoing head of communications is taking the blame for hiring Definers, the public relations firm doing opposition research on the company's critics including billionaire philanthropist George Soros.
In a Facebook post that went up late Wednesday, Elliot Schrage said the responsibility to hire Definers rests with him and that he approved the decision to hire it and similar firms.
Schrage has been at Facebook for a decade and announced his departure in June. In the post, Schrage acknowledges that Facebook asked Definers to do work on Soros after he called Facebook a "menace to society" in a speech. Definers, he says, also helped respond to what he said were unfair claims about the company.
Facebook stopped working with the firm after a New York Times investigation unveiled its tactics.
