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Russian operatives used Facebook to exploit divisions over black activism and muslims

S

super-heated plasma

Member
WAPO

The batch of more than 3,000 Russian-bought ads that Facebook is preparing to turn over to Congress shows a deep understanding of social divides in American society, with some ads promoting African-American rights groups including Black Lives Matter and others suggesting that these same groups pose a rising political threat, say people familiar with the covert influence campaign.

The Russian campaign — taking advantage of Facebook’s ability to simultaneously send contrary messages to different groups of users based on their political and demographic characteristics -- also sought to sow discord among religious groups. Other ads highlighted support for Democrat Hillary Clinton among Muslim women.

These targeted messages, along with others that have surfaced in recent days, highlight the sophistication of an influence campaign slickly crafted to mimic and infiltrate U.S. political discourse while also seeking to heighten tensions between groups already wary of one another.
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No shit.
 
L

Lunar15

Member
This is so outrageous and a threat to the very fabric of our society. That it isn't being handled with any amount of care should be shocking and alarming to everyone.

Advertising disguised as content being shuffled through social media feeds is so absolutely wrong and terrible, and yet nothing's being done about it.
 
Y

Yazzees

Member
Zuckerberg is a jerk but I still think the bigger problem is credulous-ass Middle Americans believing literally any bullshit you tell them if it fits their worldview of "minorities are trouble and hillary clinton is satan"

I've never bought that Fox News and russian spy-bots are diabolical masters of propaganda, it's that they're just playing the easiest crowd in the world
 
L

Lunar15

Member
I feel like a fucking coward for not wanting to delete my facebook, but it's increasingly clear that it's the right thing to do.
 
C

Cagey

Banned
What are the proposed answers to this problem that don't rely on social media policing itself? Government regulation of social media like it's a public utility akin to water? We can't even politically agree that internet access is a utility.

Some of these thousands of ads must certainly violate laws prohibiting foreign entities or persons from purchasing during an election, but pro and/or anti-Black Lives Matter ads? There's no prohibition there.
 
R

RinsFury

Member
Why the hell are the Russians even allowed to purchase these ads? Zuckerberg is knowingly enabling and allowing this subterfuge to go on under his watch.
 
H

Hashmal_Bringer_of_Order

Member
"Fake news" only works on people who are already idiots. I don't blame Zuckerberg. He probably can't imagine living with a perspective where this lowest form of propaganda would shape ones world view. He probably uses addblocker tbh.
 
Z

Zolo

Member
Straight from their handbook: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics

In the United States:

Russia should use its special services within the borders of the United States to fuel instability and separatism, for instance, provoke "Afro-American racists". Russia should "introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics."
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K

kess

Member
Lunar15 said:
This is so outrageous and a threat to the very fabric of our society. That it isn't being handled with any amount of care should be shocking and alarming to everyone.
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It's frighteningly consistent with his nonchalant response to AI and other technologies.
 
F

Fenderputty

Banned
kirblar said:
No. He's a gigantic dumbass, but he's not that kind of gigantic dumbass.
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I keep thinking to myself "for a man who seems to be setting himself up for a 2020 run at every opportunity, he sure as fuck didn't think too much about Facebook's roll in the 2016 elections at the time."

Unless he woke up the next Morning after the Hillary loss and decided he should give it a go.
 
D

dskillzhtown

keep your strippers out of my American football
I think for many, wrongly or rightly, there is an expectation of a vetting of ads. Obviously people are more likely to believe something that aligns with what they are feeling in the first place, but I do believe Facebook has the burden of vetting ads and "news" content. It is an implied cost of doing business. Zuck has ducked all responsibility in the quest to make money. That is who he is.
 
L

Lunar15

Member
Also, this goes way beyond just Russians. Tons of actual fake news being sent around facebook because it can be bought and sold based on user information is wrong. Anti-Vaxxing, Anti-Climate Change, and even misinformation propagated by liberal groups all have an environment to thrive and it MUST be regulated.
 
S

Sho_Nuff82

Member
Hashmal_Bringer_of_Order said:
"Fake news" only works on people who are already idiots. I don't blame Zuckerberg. He probably can't imagine living with a perspective where this lowest form of propaganda would shape ones world view. He probably uses addblocker tbh.
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Why don't we go back to the default, linear time newsfeed? FB and Twitter bot action exploits the algorithms that these companies implemented to only show you content that they think you want to see. To both bombard you with targeted ads and to only show you content that will keep you superficially happy.

I know you have the option of changing your news feed to "most recent", but it's disengaged every time you come back to the app/website.
 
J

jellies_two

Member
Hashmal_Bringer_of_Order said:
"Fake news" only works on people who are already idiots. I don't blame Zuckerberg. He probably can't imagine living with a perspective where this lowest form of propaganda would shape ones world view. He probably uses addblocker tbh.
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This is all untrue. Fake news is a spectrum, and zuckerberg as designer of the number 1 social network has an obligation to listen to his experts and should take a good chunk of blame.
 
R

RCSI

Member
Lunar15 said:
I feel like a fucking coward for not wanting to delete my facebook, but it's increasingly clear that it's the right thing to do.
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Outside key profile information (Name, DoB), most of the information on my profile is fake, next step for me would be deleting my profile.

The breadth of ads targeting these groups is disgusting. There needs to be some regulation for online ads.
 
O

Oersted

Member
Yazzees said:
Zuckerberg is a jerk but I still think the bigger problem is credulous-ass Middle Americans believing literally any bullshit you tell them if it fits their worldview of "minorities are trouble and hillary clinton is satan"

I've never bought that Fox News and russian spy-bots are diabolical masters of propaganda, it's that they're just playing the easiest crowd in the world
Click to expand...

It isn't a case of or, it is case of and. Dumb asses and Fox News and Facebook are to blame.
 
LordKasual

LordKasual

Banned
How is this Zuckerberg's fault? Facebook was the vector, and yeah FB probably should have some defense for this, but he can't be blamed in hindsight for this specifically

This sort of thing is the fault of the US and its people collectively, the way we've allowed ourselves to consume targeted media
 
B

BrassDragon

Member
While interesting, I fear that the discussion will keep spinning back to the ad content which is really not the most insidious and damaging part of these active measures. If people just view an ad in isolation, they'll likely go 'well, okay, but I'm smart and I'd never fall for a meme like that and besides, any citizen can publish the same shit so what does it matter if the Russians published a few thousand?'

The key things that the American citizenry and establishment need to grasp are the incredible power of micro-targeting (profiling you based on social media activity, relationships and voter registration information, then using algorithms to tailor messaging to your areas of psychological uncertainty) and the viral multiplier effect (even if you only buy a handful of social media ads with proper targeting, you can get them to spread far beyond the views you initially primed.)

That's potent social engineering on a grand scale that you can't leave to the whims of the free market even if you could somehow prevent foreign actors from leveraging it (unlikely.)
 
H

Hesh

Member
Something tells me that this story will fall on deaf ears because of how many people won't understand the methods of calculated propaganda detailed in the report. I can see it now "But the ads supported BLM and Hilary, they weren't bad!". Ugh.
 
M

Massive Duck. C.M.

Banned
LordKasual said:
How is this Zuckerberg's fault? Facebook was the vector, and yeah FB probably should have some defense for this, but he can't be blamed in hindsight for this specifically

This sort of thing is the fault of the US and its people collectively, the way we've allowed ourselves to consume targeted media
Click to expand...

Facebook got paid to run this shit b
 
K

KernelPanic

Member
TheCochese said:
21st Century Foundations of Geopolitics.
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Not just that:

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/09/05/gerasimov-doctrine-russia-foreign-policy-215538

In February 2013, General Valery Gerasimov—Russia’s chief of the General Staff, comparable to the U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—published a 2,000-word article, “The Value of Science Is in the Foresight,” in the weekly Russian trade paper Military-Industrial Kurier. Gerasimov took tactics developed by the Soviets, blended them with strategic military thinking about total war, and laid out a new theory of modern warfare—one that looks more like hacking an enemy’s society than attacking it head-on. He wrote: “The very ‘rules of war’ have changed. The role of nonmilitary means of achieving political and strategic goals has grown, and, in many cases, they have exceeded the power of force of weapons in their effectiveness. … All this is supplemented by military means of a concealed character.”

The article is considered by many to be the most useful articulation of Russia’s modern strategy, a vision of total warfare that places politics and war within the same spectrum of activities—philosophically, but also logistically. The approach is guerrilla, and waged on all fronts with a range of actors and tools—for example, hackers, media, businessmen, leaks and, yes, fake news, as well as conventional and asymmetric military means. Thanks to the internet and social media, the kinds of operations Soviet psy-ops teams once could only fantasize about—upending the domestic affairs of nations with information alone—are now plausible. The Gerasimov Doctrine builds a framework for these new tools, and declares that non-military tactics are not auxiliary to the use of force but the preferred way to win. That they are, in fact, the actual war. Chaos is the strategy the Kremlin pursues: Gerasimov specifies that the objective is to achieve an environment of permanent unrest and conflict within an enemy state.
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It is war. They don't really hide it.

Trump is accomplishing these goals rather well.
 
T

trembli0s

Member
Zucker is looking more and more like a Guttenburg/Luther analogue every single day. He's singlehandedly changed the method of propagating information, but as Luther soon realized you can quickly lose control of the message, leading to disastrous consequences.
 
R

rambis

Banned
With all the talk of The Donald and 5D chess, Putin and his cronies have been revealed to be real life Bond villain masterminds. This is all so sophisticated and precise.
 
U

UnObtainium17

Member
Vermillion said:
Honestly? I'm impressed. Well played, Russia.

Well fuckin played
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As much as i hate them for doing this.. it is brilliant. Peter Baelish would be proud. Shit worked like a well rehearsed orchestra... what they have accomplished is probably more than what could have ever dreamed of. It really helped America has a bunch of dumbasses in the population.
 
P

platocplx

Member
You have a network of over a billion people. It makes total sense to use it and manipulate it for evil. Facebook and other social media networks need to now wake up and realize how powerful these tools are and to protect the integrity of them and truth over $$$. Clearly they aren’t moderating ads at all and have been taking money from anyone.

Could you imagine older media selling ads like this to just anyone. Holy crap. This is terrifying.
 
E

Electric Eye

Banned
Plenty of willful participants on the US side too from your sexless angry nerd buddies trolling for them too the GOP adopting a pro Russian stance. Next election will be a shitshow for sure.
 
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