And that’s the charitable interpretation. The non-charitable one is that they simply lied.
These lies are so prevalent they've practically become memes. PR is propaganda. To a propagandist, lying is just another tool for manipulating people. Lying is in their professional DNA. Never give these assholes the benefit of the doubt; assume they are lying until proven otherwise.
This meme elides over the historical reason Bernays et al eschewed the term propaganda: the fascist regimes were printing outright lies, something he worked to avoid. To differentiate propaganda which doesn’t lie (but still, of course, seeks to influence) from the kind which embraces outright lying, the term “public relations” emerged.
And Bernays had no qualms about lying. This is the man who endeavored to convince women that cigarettes were "Torches of Freedom." He was an amoral psychopathic dirtbag.
And yes, he knew what he was doing was wrong:
> Throughout the job, Bernays concealed the fact that he was working for the American Tobacco Company, and succeeded in keeping his own name out of the affair as well. Staff were instructed never to mention his name. Third parties were used, and various notable people received payments to promote smoking publicly as if on their own initiative.[47] (Decades later, however, Bernays boasted about his role.)[48] Bernays did not smoke cigarettes himself, and persistently tried to induce his wife Doris to quit.[49]
The 'dumb' vector works on technical people. But we know, or at least can read between the lines, from big scandals that management has trained their reports to lie to them by omission. Don't bring me bad news and I can say with a straight face that we aren't aware of any problems.
Don't be silent. Keep telling your representatives how unfair this is. Show them how PCs and Macs do not have an app store or review process. They'll need a little help to understand.