
People Who Do Not Exist Invade Facebook - ericzawo
https://analysis.leadstories.com/3471185-fake-faces-people-Who-Do-Not-Exist-Invade-Facebook-To-Influence-2020-Elections.html
======
didericis
The worst thing about widespread fake information is the ease with which you
can convince yourself that everything you don't like is fake. We don't really
have a defense against it that allows for people with opposing perspectives to
coexist.

I wonder if it's possible to somehow create a "consistency checker" that can
check to see what claims are compatible with what other claims. Not a truth
checker; that's far too dangerous and easily abused. But a system that just
checks for consistency, combined with a "web of trust" where you can see the
connections to people with different perspectives who you know are NOT
liars/can connect to events you KNOW are true. That might help people trust
information from outside of their comfort zone and identify problems with
their own outlook.

There's precedent for that kind of a thing in the math world. MetaMath is an
example of a system that verifies proofs based on substitution rules alone,
plus whatever axioms you add to the system. Natural language news stories that
need to correspond to reality are obviously a much different beast, and maybe
it's impossible to do something equivalent with knowledge that isn't as
rigid/formal as math, but it's tempting to try.

Could easily backfire and make the problem worse if done improperly, though.
The risk is that such a system could be taken over/hijacked my ideologically
motivated individuals to reinforce their own ideas and hide inconsistencies
rather than shine a light on them.

~~~
knzhou
> I wonder if it's possible to somehow create a "consistency checker" that can
> check to see what claims are compatible with what other claims.

Bad news: the political narratives of whatever party you don't like _are_
self-consistent, and perfectly consistent with the facts that they hear about.
The people you think are ignorant are _already_ seeking out news from sources
they know and trust, and they _already_ evaluate new information in the
context of whatever they already believe. The issue is just not as simple as
you suggest.

~~~
didericis
Don't get me wrong, in no way am I suggesting this is an easy problem to fix.
I'm aware of how good people are at cramming huge amounts of knowledge into a
siloed yet consistent narrative (and I am not claiming myself to be completely
innocent of this either, though I think I try fairly hard not to). I'm also
well aware of the extreme difficulty in making a system that can automatically
check for consistency in the way I'm describing.

However, there are chinks in ideological armor which, if given the right
light, can cause breaches and get people to collaborate and understand one
another better.

I would argue that the current lack of any form of reliable, extensive
consistency checker that people can trust (ie, a SYSTEM they can trust rather
than a group of people) leads people to silo themselves into small, isolated
networks. They don't operate outside of their network, even though there might
be information out there somewhere that's valuable and would cause their
worldview to expand, because they know there are at least some nefarious
actors putting out inconsistent/untrue information, and it's too hard to
identify.

If there were some way to automatically "expand" your axioms and see how much
of the world they can explain while maintaining their consistency, it could
theoretically be a non biased, trustworthy way of testing your assumptions of
the world outside of your own, small, limited network, and might help people
recognize what parts of the world it is and isn't explaining.

~~~
pixl97
I'm not sure any human system is self consistent. Our entire society is built
on incomplete information.

~~~
blotter_paper
Indeed, I've long desired such a tool not as a weapon to convince my enemies
of their logical flaws but as a mirror to convince myself of my own.

------
avivo
I actually just published a guide on how you can help ensure that ("deepfake")
tools that you make are less likely to end up misused like this:
[https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614912/ethical-
deepfake-t...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614912/ethical-deepfake-
tools-a-manifesto/)

Curious what folks think. I also just posted it to /newest if you want to
respond there.

~~~
catalogia
Is anybody old enough to remember if people once had analogous reactions to
software like photoshop?

~~~
michaelbuckbee
I am (mid-forties) and started using Photoshop around version 2. People
definitely worried about the integrity of photographic evidence.

I think what's different now is the combination of much more powerful cheaper
tools (those fake GAN generated faces are likely taken from one of the sites
making them for free) vs Photoshop at the time was thousands of inflation-
adjusted dollars.

This is coupled with a much more efficient peer to peer and unvalidated news
system (which there's much to like), but consider Dan Rather. He was forced
out of CBS Evening News and producers were fired for having been fooled by
(not producing) digitally forged memos for a story critical of George W. Bush.
[1]

Contrast that to whatever group is putting up fake stories and accounts of
Facebook, there are no repercussions.

1 -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Rather#Killian_documents](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Rather#Killian_documents)

~~~
btilly
What is even crazier about the Dan Rather story is that the story about how
George W. Bush avoided Vietnam due to political manipulation and bribes was
actually TRUE.

Before it was ever reported in the USA it was reported in the UK by The
Guardian among others. Dan Rather's team started their investigation with
sources in hand which already constituted very strong evidence.

Given that the story was true _and_ Dan Rather's team was starting with solid
evidence of it, Bush's team was at a disadvantage in discrediting the story.
Their solution was to slip a clearly faked smoking gun that was so good that
Rather would have to lead with it. After Rather lead with it, Bush's team was
able to discredit Rather and get him fired. The result was that the story
became toxic and nobody in the USA was willing to report the story.

The result is rather amazing. By faking evidence for what really did happen,
Bush's team was able to make everyone believe that it didn't happen! And was
able to keep the story out of the US media!

~~~
nradov
That's an interesting conspiracy theory. Now where's the hard evidence?

~~~
btilly
I read it in one of Greg Palast's books. He reported on the story for the BBC,
and knew what evidence Rather's team started with because he was one of the
people who supplied it to them. You can also still find reporting on the story
online from The Guardian if you look for it.

See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Palast](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Palast)
for more on the reporter that I named.

And lest you think that this kind of dirty and underhanded trick would have
been off limits, see
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swift_Vets_and_POWs_for_Truth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swift_Vets_and_POWs_for_Truth)
for a more widely known story of the underhanded tricks used by Bush
supporters in that particular election.

~~~
nradov
So no actual evidence, just innuendo.

~~~
btilly
Let's see.

I pointed you at an author who is a reporter for the BBC. I am not sure which
of his books it is in, but that shouldn't be too hard to find out. (My guess
is _Armed Madhouse_.) He lays out the interviews and documents that were
sufficient for the BBC to report the story as fact. This is all verifiable.

According to you, this is "just innuendo". And therefore you have dismissed it
out of hand.

The BBC is not in the habit of publishing as fact what is "just innuendo".

~~~
nradov
I looked at the BBC reports. There's no hard evidence, just innuendo and
hearsay. You're making things up.

------
ProAm
What age demographic still really uses facebook? American's 35+? All my
friends us Messenger and the rest is on other social media platforms for
content.

 _edit_ dont know why this got downvoted, it was a legit question because
everyone knows who the primary age group of votes is, so Im wondering if there
is data on age demographics of actual FB use.

~~~
txcwpalpha
>All my friends us Messenger and the rest is on other social media platforms
for content.

Be cognizant of your bubble. All of my friends (aka people I actually
regularly interact with) don't ever use FB anymore, but a quick glance at my
FB feed shows that a huge population of people from my high school (people in
their mid-to-late 20s), mostly the ones I haven't interacted with in years,
still use it heavily.

~~~
ProAm
I agree, that is why I asked the question. Has there been real research done
to determine who the most active deep users of the platform are. Im not
judging people that do or dont use it, for any reason, just curious about the
efficacy of these fake users trying to shape a platform for an election (I
assume that is what the fraudulent accounts are for).

------
jeffdavis
It will be interesting when the election cycles start to cross over into
eachother. For instance, start lining up primaries for an election 5 years
away. We could be in a permenent election, with people slowly positioning
themselves to be elected sometime later.

Then, we can finally give up and just draft our representatives. Two months
before it's time for new politicians to take over, they would draw names, and
do 6am door-kicking raids to abduct the "candidates" and take them to D.C. to
represent us.

~~~
ajmurmann
Trump never stopped campaigning as it is. He has been holding rallies this
entire time.

~~~
9HZZRfNlpR
Who are those people who go to political rallies? This feels so alien to me.
Americans support their politicians like the rest of the world their local
club and badge and vice versa.

~~~
ajmurmann
Having grown up in Germany, the concept is super scary.

------
schnevets
Facebook won the social media war by cultivating a smaller, more selective
group of users (college students). It meant sharing had some more definitive
meaning, and provided some added safety for marketplace and message board
functions. It was their secret weapon against the MySpaces and CraigsLists,
and yet they completely abandoned it.

If they really wanted to further their company mission, their Manhattan
Project should have been a plan to keep the internet authentic and "owned" by
humans. I no longer think this will be their downfall (it has been a problem
in the system since at least 2012), but I cannot think of a more stark example
of a company trashing an original philosophy so wholeheartedly.

~~~
knzhou
That is a catch-22, isn't it? The common definition of "winning the social
media war" is to get a lot of users. That is inherently contradictory to
"cultivating" a "selective group". Just as water flows downhill, there will
inevitably be a few most popular social networks, which will inevitably be
driven by clickbait and moral panic and targeted by all bad actors.

I already saw that happen with atheism. When I was young you had to be pretty
far from normal to be really into it, and there was some fantasy that once
everybody was an athiest, society would be cool and rational. Now about a
hundred million Americans are effectively athiests and we're no more rational
than before. The problems stayed the same, because people stayed the same.

~~~
mistersquid
> Now about a hundred million Americans are effectively athiests and we're no
> more rational than before.

The US has approximately 330 million people. Asserting more than 1/3 of all
adults (330 million includes children) in the US are atheist is a bold and, in
your comment, unsubstantiated claim.

~~~
klyrs
This is a weird tangent, and "effectively atheist" is an ill-defined umbrella,
but if we take that to mean "no religion / unaffiliated / atheist / agnostic"
then it doesn't seem too far off.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion_in_the_United_Sta...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion_in_the_United_States)

------
fareesh
On Facebook you would mostly encounter such people if someone you know shares
their posts. Comments are buried too deep to have a widespread impact.

If a fake person writes the post and your friend shares it, or a guy named
"Joe the Plumber" writes it, does it really make a difference?

It is also in the realm of possibility that a group of folks is "false
flagging" these profiles to make the other side look disingenuous and shady.

~~~
creaghpatr
Sure, in fact there’s a term for that called Ratfucking.

~~~
sillysaurusx
... what?

~~~
catalogia
It's a real term in American politics:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratfucking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratfucking)

~~~
sillysaurusx
Thanks! Now I've seen everything. (It's official; with that one link, that was
the everything.)

------
buboard
love how the only facebook comment under the article is a fake "make money
from home" bot

~~~
mcadenhe
It's poetic really. I bet most of us saw that too but because of the all-too-
familiar bot text didn't think twice about it. Kind of like banner blindness.

It makes me wonder just how much damage these influence campaigns do. For
instance, if Russia spent $100k in FB ads to reach ~140 million
people[1]([https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-
chaos/2019/04/18/w...](https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-
chaos/2019/04/18/what-the-mueller-report-tells-us-about-russian-influence-
operations/)), how much of that "reach" translates into votes? I'd like to
think people aren't as dumb as people think.

~~~
bluntfang
>I'd like to think people aren't as dumb as people think.

It's not really about people being smart or dumb. There's evidence that
marketing and advertisements create sentiment, even if you don't believe in
what the ads say. It's just the way our human brains work. And these entities
are, if I had to bet, putting a lot of money towards getting people to believe
certain things and act in certain ways without them explicitly knowing that
they're being influenced.

------
rvz
I'd like to remind everyone that as we are fast approaching the prospect of
hundreds of thousands of AIs and bots graduating from their Turing Tests, we
must take the internet's own proverb very seriously.

    
    
      Do not believe everything you see on the internet.

------
sjwright
It doesn’t matter how autonomous and free thinking you are or any other
individual is— social media is transforming us into a collective. Like ants
excreting pheromones, our actions in aggregate are more powerful than any
individual, the result being whatever results from this untested cocktail of
biology, language and global connection. It’s unprecedented and borderline
unpredictable.

Nobody is in a position to directly manipulate our path... but our trajectory,
if nudged in the right place and time, can have massive consequences in the
future. Both the left and the right in the US are dysfunctional as a result of
trajectories that were nudged decades ago.

~~~
onlyrealcuzzo
How is this worse than tightly controlled mass media?

I think people like to look back on this non-existent golden era of News where
it was fair and balanced and just reported the truth. That era never existed.

At least now you have options.

I hate social media as much as anyone, but it's not bringing an end to the
world. It's easy to manipulate people of Facebook. But it's way easier on Fox
News or CNN.

~~~
zo1
You have options but you are being manipulated in subtle ways, whether
nefariously or not. And that "manipulation" is a whole lot more hidden due to
simply being "algorithms". On some level it is getting a free-pass compared to
traditional media where you can clearly see the bias.

~~~
knzhou
"Algorithms" aren't mind controlling magic. Even if they can shift your
political opinions accidentally, there are tons of people trying their hardest
to do that _on purpose_. Your feed is filtered, so are the articles in your
favorite newspaper.

------
josephjrobison
Just a few paragraphs in, the writer incorrectly states that Unsplash requires
attribution, which is the exact opposite of the entire premise of Unsplash.

If the writer can’t pick up on that obvious fact, makes me trust the whole
story less.

------
blakesterz
There's another story (I assume of many) over at the NY Times with the
headline "Facebook Discovers Fake AI-Generated Profiles".

I rather like the "People Who Do Not Exist" in this headline.

------
jinpan
To blend in with humans, these fake profiles could take advantages of AI
progress on the Turing test to converse with real people, ultimately
befriending (some high fraction of) us.

The persuasive effects of these fake friends on (political) advertising are
terrifying.

~~~
kpennell
I have a couple fake profiles I setup. Pretty easy to do!

------
digi59404
Did anyone stop and consider these aren’t fake people but people who value
anonymity?

I have 20 friends who use such tools and tech to hide their identities. Yes
they lean right, slightly but they do. They all do this to avoid being found
by employers and other. One of my friends is a prominent person in a legal
field, another one is a member of a three letter group.

Other than my real name - My Facebook profile has all fake information for
public facing as well. It always has - and it always will. Any AI viewing my
profile or person viewing my profile has no means of identifying me as a real
person unless they coorelate my name elsewhere.

For many of my friends - Their real name is not used.

In an era of fake news and “ZOMG RUSSIA” we’ve become our worst selves and
thrown logic out the window instead falling victim to knee jerk reactions.

~~~
elliekelly
Surely that scenario is the exception and not the rule.

But also, if you have the Facebook app on your phone, or associated with your
phone number or email, you’re not anonymous. It’s been an issue for sex
workers in the past who try to conceal their identity on social media but
Facebook still manages to suggest their “Johns” as friends.

~~~
digi59404
This isn’t true. I have Facebook on my phone and there’s no way to identify me
by my phone number. It’s unlisted on my profile and not public. Searching for
me by number or email does not work. I’ve check my Fb privacy settings quite
often and try to find workarounds.

------
ydb
This is nothing new. Influencing elections is a part of having elections --
this liberal idea that "bots" are somehow poisoning the electoral process is
beyond out of touch.

The TV you watch, whether it's CNN or FOX or MSNBC or CNBC has more of an
outsize effect on how you develop your personal beliefs than any of this
nonsense. The biggest thing to come out of America's Second Red Scare is that
people are more likely to listen to others when they spout propaganda that
they already believe.

To think it's the FSB or GRU is somehow responsible for a defect in the design
of elections in a democratic republic is laughable. If anything, the
"Russians" are doing what Siberia and their rough country taught them: make
the best of a bad situation.

------
fhkatari
I was forwarded Sacha Baron Cohen's facebook critique
([https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/nov/22/sacha-
bar...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/nov/22/sacha-baron-cohen-
facebook-propaganda)) by a friend, as an argument to outlaw facebook. I
brought up how Bush swiftboated Kerry and won the election. Media has always
been used as a political weapon, it seems. Is FB much worse?

------
RickJWagner
In somewhat-related news, a group of Washington Post reporters tweeted a party
photo labeled 'Merry Impeachmas'.

There is no impartial source of media today. Not traditional media, not social
media. You have to go out and talk to people around you to know what people
really think.

"If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed, if you do read it, you’re
misinformed." \- Denzel Washington

------
yters
How can we know anyone online is real?

------
dzhiurgis
Ironically, zuc's new photo looks like it's been generated:
[https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10111007623865331&se...](https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10111007623865331&set=a.743613136151&type=3&theater)

Catching faces from thispersondoesnotexist is easy - just poll the their site
every 1 second and collect all faces. Others are probably trickier but FB is
sophisticated enough.

My real question is how can one specify Z vector that generates a specific
(say myself's) face?
[http://podgorskiy.com/static/stylegan/stylegan.html#wMUUPtHj...](http://podgorskiy.com/static/stylegan/stylegan.html#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)

------
tabtab
Fake people reading and writing fake news on fake websites? If this keeps up,
we'll end up with a fake President. Don't give me negative points, for this is
a fake reply.

~~~
dilyevsky
The world has gone full Philip K Dick

~~~
saalweachter
I occasionally think about the end of The Man in the High Castle, when the
characters realize they are living in a fictional alternate history.

~~~
boring_twenties
WTF man? Not everyone has read everything already...

~~~
saalweachter
While I am fine with the social conventions that hold spoiling recent works as
anathema, or even older works within limited contexts (for instance, /r/WoT
tries to allow readers to talk about the early books without instantly being
spoiled for the later ones), the absurd demands people make to not "spoil" any
book or movie people still read or watch recreationally -- and not just as a
homework assignment -- is _harmful_.

The metaphors, the concepts, the philosophies expressed in books, even trashy
1960's SF, are _important_. They are tools we can use to explain, to convince,
to argue, to communicate.

Demanding that we never speak aloud in any public place the words from any
work of art more recent than Black Beauty (is that too recent? Is it OK to at
least reference the end of Romeo and Juliet?) is demanding that we weaken
ourselves, like Harrison Bergeron in Kurt Vonnegut's short story of the same
name, and only communicate at the level of the least well-read individual in
any society. If books are not going to contribute to discourse, if we cannot
tell other people of what we read, we might as well burn them all, as in Ray
Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451.

And at the end of the day, the only thing being protected by fervent cries of
"spoilers!" "spoilers!" are the barest, sparsest facts of the story: if
finding out the ending of a story is the only reason to read it, you were
probably done a favor by having it "spoiled". Journey before destination.

~~~
boring_twenties
While I appreciate your thorough and heartfelt response here, what I don't
understand is how your comment would have been diminished in any way without
the explicit spoiler?

Anyone who has already read the book would get it anyway. Everyone else
wouldn't be any worse off, since that simple summary doesn't help understand
the nuance of why it reminded of the ending. The only thing it does is spoil
the ending.

> If finding out the ending of a story is the only reason to read it, you were
> probably done a favor by having it "spoiled"

False dichotomy much? It's not the only reason, but it's certainly a decent
sized factor in the enjoyment of a novel. I certainly don't feel like you did
me any favors.

------
fakegalitarian
Reminder that the Russians primarily targeted black americans to agitate us
over police brutality, and that every single media piece that gives more than
3 example ads without showing a single one target black americans is, with
high probability (a statistician can formalize this), peddling an agenda.
"White working class voters" were never the primary target and they targeted
them _less_ as the campaign went on.

Primary source: [https://intelligence.house.gov/social-media-
content/social-m...](https://intelligence.house.gov/social-media-
content/social-media-advertisements.htm)

------
xrd
Here are the assumptions I have about what's happening here.

But, the real question I have is: are these thoughts which have been
influenced/crafted unbeknownst to me?

Pro tip where I attempt to bring awareness to my thoughts: look for the
keyword "automatically" in my statements below.

1\. These are pro-Trump sites. Perhaps the author filtered only these groups
for their results? The takeaway is that I automatically think pro-Trump groups
must be creating these fake accounts. Then, I automatically think "Russians!"

2\. There is another article from the NYTimes on Hacker News right now
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21847051](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21847051)).
It mentions a pro Falun Gong group behind it. I automatically think this must
be a Chinese state funded group doing it to discredit Falun Gong.

This is an amazing bit of research and write up. And, could it be that not
everything is what it seems here?

I recently heard a discussion from Ben Freeman on Terry Gross' Fresh Air
([https://www.npr.org/2019/11/21/781579229/ukrainian-
oligarchs...](https://www.npr.org/2019/11/21/781579229/ukrainian-oligarchs-
and-the-influence-of-foreign-money-on-american-politics)). Mr. Freeman is the
director of the "Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative at the Center for
International Policy." His point was that Russia is actually pretty bad at
interference, which is why we know about it. Everyone does it, and the Saudi's
and Israel and Japan do it with much more class and craft. It makes me wonder
whether these fake accounts come from who we think they do.

------
kevin_thibedeau
A FB ToS violation is not a violation of the law. Nothing prevents people from
having multiple accounts to shill with. The only thing "wrong" is how much
people will trust what they read on the internet from random people they don't
know.

~~~
rexpop
What, then, ought people to trust?

------
Mugwort
Is Hacker News fake news? Many times people post things that would make a real
expert roll their eyes. There are some smart people here but also lots of
inaccurate information.

------
Mugwort
Is anyone out there simply unaware of the "fake news" phenomenon. Are we so
inured that we cannot differentiate BS from the real thing and need to be
protected? I don't think so. Everyone KNOWS. People aren't that stupid. Why
wasn't lying us into the Iraq war considered fake news?

