Last weekend, we described how the lobbying group organized by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to promote immigration reform had been caught trashing President Obama and Obamacare and supporting oil drilling in the Alaska wilderness--policies that have nothing to do with immigration.
Although this behavior was described as business as usual in Washington--if you want to get something done, you just bribe Senators and Congress-people to vote for it--some of the donors to Zuckerberg's lobbying group, FWD.us, may not have seen it that way.
The way they might have seen it was that their money was being used to support policies and politicians that they disagreed with.
Then, this week, the Sierra Club, Move.org, and other organizations announced that they would be pulling their advertising from Facebook as a result of the lobbying group's tactics.
And now, Kara Swisher of All Things D reports, two influential Silicon Valley supporters of FWD.us, Tesla founder Elon Musk and Yammer founder David Sacks, have withdrawn their support.
Responding to Swisher's story, Om Malik, another influential Silicon Valley journalist and venture capitalist, called onYahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, Kleiner Perkins partner John Doerr, and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman to follow Musk and Sacks out the door.
Yesterday, Jim Breyer, a Facebook board member and venture capitalist at Accel Partners, reiterated his support for the group. But, so far, FWD.us's attempts to defend itself have largely fallen on deaf ears.
And it seems that, however well-intentioned the lobbying effort might have been, it is beginning to fall apart.
Read Kara Swisher's article here >
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