James Ball is an award-winning journalist and author who has worked for WikiLeaks, The Guardian, The Washington Post and BuzzFeed. The opinions in this article belong to the author.

(CNN) On Wednesday evening -- just hours before the Thanksgiving holiday -- Facebook issued a statement in which it confessed that it had hired a public relations company to contact the press connecting its critics to the Hungarian financier, George Soros.

George Soros has become a lightning rod for the far right and for anti-Semites across the world -- and serves as dog-whistle shorthand for such groups. As one of the largest platforms in the world hosting such hate groups, Facebook knows this well.

As such, a deliberate effort to brand its opponents in this way -- as "Soros-funded" -- demonstrates an almost malicious willingness to tap into both those feelings and those groups and setting them against critics of their social network.

This is not corporate PR as usual. Even in its statement, Facebook referred to its critics in derogatory terms -- as "so-called grassroots networks." By releasing it hours before a US public holiday, Facebook has demonstrated its contempt for its critics, and its total lack of contrition over its activities. The company, it seems, is only sorry it got caught.

As can be demonstrated by the numerous public inquiries -- whether in Congress, the European Parliament or the UK House of Commons, to name just a few -- that Facebook is facing, the company has some huge issues to tackle to restore the internet and to protect its future.

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