As Facebook finds itself in the midst of another controversy, coming under fire from the left this time, it turns out a coalition attacking Facebook includes a prominent press union.
Facebook is in the midst of what Vox called a “liberal apology tour” after hiring an opposition research firm which sought to shed light on connections and funding of the Freedom From Facebook (FFF) coalition and liberal billionaire George Soros. The group’s goal is to pressure the Federal Trade Commission into breaking up Facebook and forcing it to spin off assets like Messenger and Instagram to reduce the company’s power.
The FFF coalition includes a dozen member groups including Public Citizen, Democracy for America, MoveOn and the Communications Workers of America (CWA) union. Four of the 12 groups — MoveOn, Demand Progress, Public Citizen and Open Markets Institute — have gotten donations from Soros' Open Society Foundations.
The CWA website says it represents 700,000 workers overall, including about 25,000 journalists and media workers in hundreds of news organizations through the NewsGuild-CWA. According to Politico, that includes journalists at major publications like The New York Times and Washington Post. CWA is also one of the 55 member unions that make up the the AFL-CIO.
CWA is openly left-wing, highlighting its “progressive policy” on the site. For example, in 2016 endorsed Democratic Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders for president and donated to both him and Sen. Hillary Clinton. The NewsGuild-CWA site says its goals are to “fight most effectively for our common interests: sustainable jobs, equality in the workplace, dignified working conditions and the defense of ethical practices in our work.”
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Before Facebook severed ties with the public affairs firm, the group had urged journalists to look for connections between liberal billionaire George Soros and the left-wing coalition members.
According to WIRED, “The extent of the Soros relationship seems to be that the billionaire philanthropist does provide funding to both Open Markets and some of the progressive groups who constitute the Freedom From Facebook coalition. There's no indication, though, that he has any direct involvement with the initiative.”
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