An explosive New York Times report, published Wednesday, revealed that Facebook employed a PR firm to smear critics and publish hit-pieces on rival tech companies Apple and Google. These pieces were published on NTKNetwork.com, a site run by the firm that masqueraded as a real news site. NBC jumped on board the story, with a former employee of the firm calling NTKNetwork “our in-house fake news shop.”

Facebook claimed in response that the report was fake news. The company stated that it never asked the firm – a Washington DC-based company called Definers – to write articles or spread misinformation. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that he was unaware of Facebook’s relationship with Definers, despite the fact that the company’s statement said that relationship was “well known by the media.”

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Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg also denied knowledge of Definers’ relationship with Facebook.

“We absolutely did not pay anyone to create fake news,” she told CBS News on Friday. “And again, we're doing a thorough look into what happened but they have assured me that we were not paying anyone to either write or promote anything that was false.”

So who’s faking it?

The Times’ revelations sparked a flurry of discussion on social media, with the court of public opinion weighing in against Facebook.