The NYT is out with an investigative report on the way Facebook’s overlords dealt with the Russian election hacking and other building controversies. Among the most damning aspects of the story is the way Facebook deployed a sort of if you can’t beat them, join them strategy to deal with the nefarious exploitation of their massive platform. “While Mr. Zuckerberg has conducted a public apology tour in the last year, Ms. Sandberg has overseen an aggressive lobbying campaign to combat Facebook’s critics, shift public anger toward rival companies and ward off damaging regulation. Facebook employed a Republican opposition-research firm to discredit activist protesters, in part by linking them to the liberal financier George Soros. It also tapped its business relationships, lobbying a Jewish civil rights group to cast some criticism of the company as anti-Semitic.” Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis. This disastrous Facebook story is one more example of a reality we need to come to terms with: Being knowledgeable about building viral internet properties does not qualify you to lead the thing Facebook has become. (I’m not sure anything does…)

+ How Facebook Wrestled With Scandal: 6 Key Takeaways From The Times’s Investigation