San Francisco, Jan 9 (IANS): Teen Vogue, an online lifestyle website owned by Conde Nast, faced backlash on social media when it published an article sans byline about how Facebook is helping 2020 US election, only to remove it later.
Titled 'Facebook is Helping Ensure the Integrity of the 2020 Election?' the article featured interviews with five senior Facebook executives involved in the social networking platform's efforts to protect the integrity of the 2020 election.
Once Teen Vogue was trolled on social media, the article was labelled 'sponsored content' before disappearing altogether, CNET reported on Thursday.
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg also shared the article in a post, calling it a great piece about "five incredible women protecting elections" for the social media platform.
Conde Nast, the parent company of Teen Vogue, later apologised.
"We made a series of errors labelling this piece, and we apologise for any confusion this may have caused," a company spokesperson said in a statement.
"It's still available via google amp and woah. Anyone who has written for #teenvogue should demand accountability for an unsigned corporate PR bootlicking and excuses disguised as girl power -- complete with photoshoot -- that clearly involved extensive coordination," tweeted a user.
At some point of time, Teen Vogue contributor Lauren Rearick was listed as the author of the piece, who later denied writing the article.
A Facebook spokesperson said: "We had a paid partnership with Teen Vogue related to their women's summit, which included sponsored content. Our team understood this story was purely editorial, but there was a misunderstanding."
The goof-up came a day after Facebook Vice President Andrew 'Boz' Bosworth claimed that it was the social networking giant that got Donald Trump elected as the US President in 2016 because "he ran the single best digital ad campaign I've ever seen from any advertiser".
In a memo, the key Facebook executive suggested that the platform with over 2.45 billion monthly active users should not use its enormous reach to block Trump's re-election in 2020.
"Trump just did unbelievable work," Bosworth wrote.