Facebook's Sandberg asked the company to probe George Soros as a result of his critical remarks

Facebook admitted on Thursday that it had probed billionaire George Soros' motives for criticizing the platform, but also for his possible investments in the social sector.

A Facebook spokesman said that a study on the "potential motivations" of the January platform of Soros was underway when the chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, sent an email informing of the possible position of Soros on the Facebook stock. 19659007] This confession was a response to a New York Times article on Thursday that Sandberg had asked senior communications and policy officials to consider Soros's investments following a speech delivered during of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in which he described social media as "harmful".

The Times cited three anonymous sources.

Sandberg asked the staff to determine if Soros would win financially by criticizing Facebook.

"We researched the potential motivations of Facebook criticism by George Soros in January 2018," acknowledged Facebook spokesman. "Soros is a prominent investor and we looked at his investments and Facebook-related trading, which was already underway when Sheryl sent an email asking if Mr. Soros had reduced Facebook's stock."

forum – Sandberg reportedly attended the event but did not attend his speech – Soros called social media a "threat".

"Human attention is becoming a very dangerous and perhaps irreversible thing," said the politically progressive philanthropist. "Not only distraction or addiction, social media companies are encouraging people to give up their autonomy."

The revelations follow a Times investigation that Facebook hired an affiliate of Republicans earlier this year, Definers Public Affairs,

A former Definers employee told NBC News that the company owned a "false news store internally", but Facebook said it did not ask for this particular service. [19659016] Even though Facebook's outgoing chief of communications, Elliot Schrage, said last week that the responsibility for the Definers debacle was entirely his own, Facebook's latest statement said Sandberg "was entirely responsible for responsibility for any activity occurring under its supervision ".