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The three-year relationship between Meta’s chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg and former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick has spawned a scandal of improper use of power to pressure British newspapers.
“A domineering female executive takes care of the perverted behavior of her perverted CEO boyfriend”
This kind of plot twists and turns even after being outlined, it is really impossible for the contract writers of the general web site to write.
However, reality is always more bizarre than literature and art.
There is nothing in the paid web site, but the news report is free for everyone to see.
Meta vice president personally suppressed the report for the boyfriend of Activision Blizzard president
The Wall Street Journal first reported that Meta’s chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, is facing internal scrutiny at the company.
Since 2008, Ms. Sandberg has been the number two in the business.
On two occasions, she allegedly pressured a British tabloid to shelve a potentially negative story about her then-boyfriend, Activision Blizzard’s then-CEO Bobby Kotick, according to people close to the executives.
In 2016 and 2019, Ms Sandberg contacted the digital edition of the UK’s Daily Mail when it was planning a story, according to people involved in the entire process.
Reports will reveal the existence of a temporary injunction against Mr Kotick, which one of his ex-girlfriends applied to court in 2014.
Ms. Sandberg and Mr. Kotick assembled a team that included Meta employees, Activision Blizzard employees, and legal and public relations consultants hired from both the U.K. and the U.S. for a fee, according to the people.
Bobby KotickThe team developed a strategy to twice persuade the Daily Mail digital not to report on Mr Kotick’s ex-girlfriend’s restraining order, first when Ms Sandberg and Mr Kotick started dating in 2016 and then in 2019 when they split .
Amid the concerns, multiple legal and public relations consultants inside and outside the company are concerned that a story could negatively impact her reputation as a voice for women’s rights.
According to people close to Ms. Sandberg and Mr. Kotick, Meta recently began examining whether Ms. Sandberg acted as described and whether she violated company rules. The review began after The Wall Street Journal began preparing to report on the events in late 2021, these people said.
Sheryl Sandberg2016, Threat Newsroom
The digital edition of the UK’s Daily Mail is called MailOnline and operates separately from the print edition. In any case, MailOnline has never published a report on Bobby Kotick’s ban.
According to people familiar with the situation, the Daily Mail’s digital version of the dystocia reporting project stemmed from 2014 US court documents obtained by the Daily Mail, which showed that one of Mr Kotick’s ex-girlfriends claimed that Kotick harassed her at her home, so A temporary restraining order was applied for against him.
According to Los Angeles County Superior Court records, the woman initially applied for a more lasting restraining order, but three weeks later, at the request of both parties, the matter was removed from the court’s schedule, the temporary restraining order was terminated, and the application was rejected. turn down.
In both 2016 and 2019, Ms Sandberg pressured the Daily Mail that the ex-girlfriend had withdrawn the charges, according to some people familiar with the matter.
For the first time in 2016, Ms Sandberg and Mr Kotick allegedly discussed closely with the aforementioned think tank how to stop the Daily Mail from publishing an article about the restraining order.
They discussed what information they believed the Post had obtained and whether they could convince the publication’s leadership that Mr. Kotick was wrongly accused, one of the people said.
There are conflicting claims about what Ms Sandberg said in this incident and whether she directly referred to Meta in her communications with the Daily Mail at the time.
Mr Kotick had told People that Ms Sandberg threatened the Daily Mail in 2016 that publishing such an article could damage the news organisation’s business relationship with Meta, according to people familiar with Mr Kotick.
In a written statement now, though, Mr. Kotick told The Wall Street Journal: “I never said anything like that.” He also said other Wall Street Journal reports on the matter were inaccurate, but did not provide further details.
Bobby Kotick said it was his understanding that the Post did not publish the report because it was not true. When asked about the restraining order and his ex-girlfriend, he said the matter had died down and they “are still friends now”.
People close to Ms Sandberg said direct threats were not in her character, but given Meta’s clout in the news industry, even a neutrally worded call from her could be seen by news organizations as unequal negative pressure .
Given the social media giant’s control over web traffic and Ms. Sandberg’s power and influence, any intervention by her in a news article, regardless of the exact wording, is likely to be viewed as a threaten.
But Meta appeared willing to support Ms. Sandberg, and a company spokeswoman told The Wall Street Journal: “Sheryl Sandberg has never threatened MailOnline’s business relationship with Meta to influence the editorial decision of the former.”
And in response to the Verge’s inquiry, Meta also stepped up its position: “The event connection that The Wall Street Journal is trying to make does not exist.”
But the “Daily Mail” is reluctant to take the blame.
At one point in 2016, Martin Clarke, then MailOnline’s editor-in-chief, told staff that the publication would not publish an article about the restraining order because he had received a call from Ms. Sandberg, according to another source familiar with the incident.
In 2019, email directly to the boss
In a second incident in 2019, when the Daily Mail tried again to investigate the ban report, Ms Sandberg emailed Jonathan Harmsworth, the great-grandson of the Daily Mail founder and chairman of its parent company. , expressing concern about this possible article.
In an email, Ms Sandberg said she appreciated the Post’s “commitment to getting the facts right,” the source said.
This is really textbook-style rhetoric and shocking tigers.
However, Jonathan Harmsworth, who holds the title of Sir, has always had a stance of not participating in the specific editorial affairs of the newspaper, and he conveyed the problem to Martin Clarke.
According to the source, Martin Clarke and Ms Sandberg exchanged emails in 2019. Martin Clarke left the Daily Mail in February 2022.
Ms. Sandberg has advocated for women in the workplace in a book called Lean In, and through Lean In.Org, a nonprofit organization of the same name.
When the technology media The Verge reported the matter, Piri Yangqiu commented: “‘Going all out’ means this, I see.”
Activision Blizzard CEO accused of workplace sexual harassment, banned from ex-girlfriend
Mr. Kotick has led Activision Blizzard since 1991. Most recently, the video game giant was acquired by Microsoft for about $75 billion.
The California state government filed a lawsuit in July 2021, accusing Activision Blizzard of widespread sexual harassment and discrimination, including Kotick himself. Mr Kotick was therefore under pressure from shareholders, employees and business partners.
At that time, someone satirized Activision Blizzard: “It turns out that “World of Warcraft” was really made by a company led by a lecherous goblin boss.”
The Wall Street Journal reported in November 2021 that Mr. Kotick had known for years about the existence of wrongdoing, but had not reported it to the company’s board. Activision Blizzard’s board said at the time that it had been “informed at all times of the status of regulatory matters.”
In late March 2022, a California judge approved an $18 million settlement between Activision Blizzard and the government agency Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
During the three years they were dating, Mr. Kotick and Ms. Sandberg frequently sought public relations advice from employees of the other company, the sources said.
In 2016, Mr. Kotick forwarded interview inquiries from the New York Times reporter to several people, asking for help, including a Meta employee who worked for Ms. Sandberg.
He inadvertently chose to CC the Wall Street Journal reporter in the mailing recipient list at the time…
The Los Angeles County Superior Court case file related to the March 2014 restraining order is public, and court officials say it usually includes all relevant documents, but does not currently include a copy of Mr. Kotick’s ex-girlfriend’s testimony. The Wall Street Journal reviewed her statement records.
In a statement, the ex-girlfriend said she told Mr Kotick: “Their relationship was over because she said Kotick had a bully and control freak nature.
Kotick then showed up unsolicited at his ex-girlfriend’s home in Los Angeles and attempted to break in, prompting her to call the police, according to the statement. The ex-girlfriend said the police gave her an emergency protection order.
A subsequent temporary restraining order prevented Mr Kotick from coming within 100 yards of her or contacting her, according to court records. The order was lifted on April 17, 2014.
The accuser later told the outside world that her statement for the restraining order included many exaggerated or untrue allegations, according to the source. The Daily Mail knew she had retracted at least some of the allegations when it interviewed and curated the potential article on the restraining order, these people said.
When the WSJ report was published, a representative for Kotick’s ex-girlfriend provided her with a written statement: “The statements I made about Bobby Kotick more than eight years ago were untrue.”
Daily Mail Online relies on Facebook for traffic
MailOnline is one of the most trafficked English-language news sites, and like many similar sites, it relies on Facebook for a significant portion of its traffic.
In 2010, Facebook provided 10% of MailOnline’s traffic in the UK, according to the newspaper.
In 2019, due in part to changes in algorithms, its referrals accounted for 3.86 percent of such traffic to the site, according to web analytics firm SimilarWeb.
In 2016, Facebook announced two new video ad formats and said the Daily Mail was one of the premium partners to get those formats early.
Using these new video ad formats requires clients to use two other Meta products: “Facebook Audience Network” and “Instant Articles”, both of which the Daily Mail has access to.
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