Facebook announced on Tuesday that it has identified a coordinated political influence campaign, with dozens of inauthentic accounts and pages that are believed to be engaging in political activity around divisive social issues ahead of November’s midterm elections.
In a series of briefings on Capitol Hill this week and a public post on Tuesday, the company told lawmakers that it had detected and removed 32 pages and accounts connected to the influence campaign on Facebook and Instagram as part of its investigations into election interference. It publicly said it had been unable to tie the accounts to Russia, whose Internet Research Agency was at the center of an indictment earlier this year for interfering in the 2016 election, but company officials told Capitol Hill that Russia was possibly involved, according to two officials briefed on the matter.
Facebook said that the accounts – eight Facebook pages, 17 Facebook profiles, and seven Instagram accounts – were created between March 2017 and May 2018 and first discovered two weeks ago. Those numbers may sound small, but their influence is spreading: More than 290,000 accounts followed at least one of the suspect pages, the company said.
The reach of Facebook combined with the declining US education system and dreadful media landscape makes it quite easy to influence people. It’s very worrying.
Sooooooo, the bullshit being posted by these inauthentic accounts is somehow worse than the bullshit being posted by authentic ones? Moreover, is there much politically being posted on Facebook (or anywhere else for that matter) that is NOT bullshit? (Hint: If either the left or right says it isn’t bullshit, that’s usually a dead giveaway that it is.)
Yes, the horror! And those orchestrating DOZENS of accounts might end up spending HUNDREDS of dollars buying ad space to “meddle” and corrupt our pristine democracy!.
“The reach of Facebook combined with the declining US education system and dreadful media landscape makes it quite easy to influence people. It’s very worrying.”
Exactly this.
In the US and UK and maybe elsewhere there is a definite disdain for education, learning, critical thinking, healthy scepticism, and focus on evidence. In the UK politicians have been accusing “experts” saying the public have had enough of “experts”
Worse still – people like Trump are actively celebrating ignorance, “I love the poorly educated” sounds inclusive but provides backbone to arguments based on blind faith and irrational fear.
This way, lies not wisdom.
Yoda was right: “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
What he omitted is what leads to irrational fear.
Ignorance.
https://media.giphy.com/media/GQnsaAWZ8ty00/giphy.gif
I do not see how social media has became public enemy number one in regards to public influence, propaganda, public relations, social engineering, generational conditioning, or what ever name you may know this practice by. That’s not to say that it’s not an influence, but there have been influences at work LONG before Facebook, or even the Internet rose to fame.
If you merely take a trip down memory lane and have a closer inspection in regards to the above mentioned activities, you’ll see that they far transcend the 20th century and the rise of mass communication.
I believe the following quote of Napoleon Bonaparte’s stands as a great example. “A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon”.
Though it can not be argued that Napoleon didn’t have near the sphere of influence that he could have had, had he been around during the time of Morse Code, and later the Radio, and then Tell-lie-vision, Privatized Internet, and so forth.
And that brings up something of importance, and that is the fact the fact that who ever controls the information that most people are paying attention to, tends to control the general perspective of the populous.
So for example, if you live in the East Coast in the 1890’s and you are not fond of long train trips, then your only way to know anything about the West Coast would be to ask people who had been there, or go by the local news as transmitted via Morse Code and then on to the local papers; assuming you had access to any of that.
Granted, neither source could possibly give you the full picture just as “being there” could not give you the full picture, but the point being is that your perspective would be limited by who your source was, how much you trusted them, and lastly, the degree of honesty and depth by which they tried to communicate information.
Move onward a few years and we have Radio, which unlike Morse Code, lends to not only moving large amounts of information across a long distance in a small amount of time, but also has entertainment value.
This in turn attracts investors, as running a radio broadcast is not free after all. Though this in turn leads to the interest of the investors as well as those who have invested in them; which then of course leads to conflict of interest which tends to lead towards censorship, omission of details, fabrication, and sensation creation.
On from the Radio we have Tell-lie-vision, which again requires money to run, and so come the corporate and state level investors and interests, which again rob from the technology the freedom of expression that it may have been invented for in the first place. Hence the reason we only see 1 of 4 general opinions flashed upon our screens day after day. This is why every magazine for sale in the check out line is about the same non-sense. This is why the same perspectives and ideologies are being sung and expressed by the pop stars in their songs and videos, and this is why the world often comes across as shallow, void, and as if everything has been done before because everything has been turned into a Corporate Interest, a Sales Target, or an Ideology to peddle.
In short, the Church power of yesterday can’t even come close to the influence of the mass media world. And on that not, nor can a few accounts on Facebook, Instagram, or what have you. The proverbial people do not have the power, and the Internet is no exception, especially the more centralized it becomes in regards to who owns what. As an example, I can post a video on Youtube that is trying to convey an ideology, a perspective, a feeling, or what ever. Though unless people know who I am, unless I have a reputation, or mad marketing skills; it is going to be very unlikely that anyone is going to see my upload, and it will be very unlikely that anyone is going to start a cult like following because of what I have uploaded and shared.
On the other hand, the owners of Youtube have the ability to control what content I see and what content I do not see. They run algorithms on me, and not the other way around. Further more they have the ability to change the Youtube link in the upper right hand corner, to bring me not to the Youtube homepage with videos that may or may not be associated with my interests, but instead to videos that highlight this ideology or that, such as the sudden rise of homosexuality and transgenderism as an example, which seems to have taken top priority over starvation issues, homelessness, education, health, discernment, psychology, sociology, materialist risks, and so on.
Facebook and Google do the same sort of thing by highlighting links associated with ideologies that they have chosen for me to be exposed to and not the other way around. I believe the most recent campaign was to present Nelson Mandela as a world hero. And what’s up with all the self appointed heroes all of a sudden anyhow?!?!
So my point being is that in the face of Corporate and State control and influence, I, nor anyone else could possibly compete. At least not using the methods that they claim we are using. And if people really are trying to apply such methods, they have lost before they began and didn’t think things through. And this is exactly why you never have and never will come across Taliban, ISIS, NAZI, or any other form of radical recruiting on Facebook, Gaming Networks, or where ever else they claim that goes on, because it just isn’t effective, though the powers that be insist we busy our selves about by posting such stuff anyhow, and that’s why we need to be watched, censored, parented, rather than educated to be discerned and wise individuals.
If you want that sort of influence that Facebook claims we have, then you need to play with the big dogs up top, and I’m sure that none of us have that sort of money, nor do we know the right people to even have a chance of joining their party in the first place.
In short, this is just a war against the people, they are shifting the blame, and accusing us of the transgressions that they themselves commit.
Lastly, I’d like to reference a few good books that are well worth your read and might help to un-weave the psychological hold that the powers that be have held over our minds since we first turned on a TV, first fell in love with a pop song, or first went to school.
Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television
Book by Jerry Mander
Building a bridge to the 18th century
Book by Neil Postman
The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind
Book by Gustave Le Bon (1895)
The Leipzig Connection: The Systematic Destruction of American Education
Book by Lance J. Klass and Paolo Lionni
Crystallizing Public Opinion
Book by Edward Bernays (1923)
Propaganda
Book by Edward Bernays (1928)
12 Rules for Life
Book by Jordan Peterson
When you give alms, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
– Matthew 6:1-4
Edited 2018-08-01 22:14 UTC
You should arrest GNU on the same point.
Let’s face it: I believe the real issue, here, is that propaganda is not in the hands of a few any longer, as basically anybody with an interest can set up as many accounts as they wish on any social media and start mass-producing well (or not so well) crafted propaganda that suits their agenda.
And I see nothing inherently bad with that, really, as long as what is being propagandized corresponds to truth. Oftentimes it’s not, but it was not also before the advent of the social networks, except we had no way to easily communicate about it and make it a global conversation topic.
But if one deems propaganda a problem, then surely the focus shouldn’t be on the social networks but on the propaganda itself, whichever media is used to spread it?
In the end, with bots and automation a single person in a bedroom with enough ability can appear to be a host of thousands or millions.
The internet is a huge megaphone almost anybody can use.
This quite rightly scares governments who are used to a certain amount of control – whether it be via D-notices or simply personal relationships or common interests.
There isn’t an easy answer – but I’d start with:
– ban all political ads – internet, TV or otherwise.
This simplifies the problem as advertising is the only way to reach almost anybody irrespective of the platform they use.
In the UK TV ads were banned in the 1950’s, internet ads should follow. Breaking this rule should be a serious offence.
Everything else – no addition regulation – I can’t see how you can clamp down on automated twitter bots without censoring real people’s voices.
In the end, spaces like facebook will provide tools for people to control spam because otherwise people will leave – they won’t provide tools to control ads – because that’s where the money comes from, but it won’t matter if you ban political ads…
Doing so might kill free speech. I believe that a kurd or a persian has the right to speak on the internet and make their voices heard, just as the sami, the catalunians and so on. If we allow the government to regulate the internet to monitor every word, there can be no righteousness and as follows no freedom or liberty.
Even if you do not like the concept of liberty as given by none but your “creator” (might be god, big bang, evolution or other). You have to accept that people yearn for freedom.
The US is rather free, the EU is almost as free, India is almost free, PRC is a bit free, DPRK is not at all free.
I would rather bet my future in india than in china for sure in the long run. But totalitarians always come, and we must be ready. Trump mich be bad for ye, but he is not the one to stop…. it is what is to come.
How does banning political ‘paid for’ adverts damage ‘free’ speech?
All? O_o (I have a buddy in the UK who would like that – he has a TV, but it’s not connected to the antenna / he doesn’t use it to watch over-the-air TV …largely because of the ads, he says)
Hmm – read it again – talking about banning political ads, not ads in general.
There is no advertising by political parties on TV in the UK – they get allocated party political slots for free during the run up to an election and that’s it.
With the internet replacing TV, the regulations simply need to be updated so money can’t buy elections as it does in the US…
I see (eh, I guess I thought you were talking like it was in the 1950s, not since the 1950s). Well, I suppose at my place there were no ads at all it the TV back then
(here being in the Soviet block). But it’s like you described also at my place now …seems to be ~EU standard.
Russia created 17 (wow!) accounts to influence the American elections? Wow, people will believe ANYTHING these ddays.
Maybe I should create 30 accounts and become president!
Facebook announcing it has removed 32 pages that it is “unable to tie … to Russia” but “Russia was possibly involved”, is also mis-information.
The Pope or The Queen of England were “possibly involved” too.
Facebook is trying to deflect accountability for the fact that it is an ultra free press with essentially no controls. People like that and as with all vices we like, there are negative consequences.