
Removing Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior from China - lawrenceyan
https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/08/removing-cib-china/
======
lawnchair_larry
People are complaining a lot about how FB are enforcing things, and why they
are explicit about their decision to remove these things was not based on the
content, but the patterns of inauthentic activity and fake accounts.

Look what happened with Matthew Prince of Cloudflare. Relentless harassment
from people who believe he should be more active in censoring his customers,
especially after that last shooting. Even when he has reluctantly stepped in
on some extreme cases, they still gave him no credit. Defining wrongthink is a
slippery slope, and you’ll never make ideologues happy. If you even try, then
next thing you know, you’re somehow culpable for everything you _didn’t_
remove, or didn’t remove quickly enough. Then you get accusations of endorsing
it, because you removed X but not Y, so you must approve of Y, right?

And where does it end? “Sprint are ‘literally Nazis’ for allowing David Duke
to have a cell phone?”

It’s no wonder everyone is deathly afraid of policing based on content. The PR
consequences are bad enough, but it’s also likely to lead into legal problems
as well.

~~~
0xB31B1B
I dunno, FB does a pretty good job keeping ISIS recruitment and child porn off
its products and I don’t see them getting harangued for that.

~~~
daodedickinson
I see FB, Twitter, and YouTube accused frequently of not doing enough to take
down pedophilia.

~~~
mirimir
Lots of American culture skates _very_ close to pedophilia. At the extreme,
there's porn that's only legal because the actors are documented adults. But
there are also some hugely popular actors and musicians, who leverage child-
like sexuality. And then the pervasive style for girls to dress like
prostitutes.

And no, I'm not a prude. I just find it amusing. And, I admit, very sexy.

Edit: If I didn't care about this account, I'd link examples. But I do, so I
won't.

~~~
cat199
> Lots of American culture

lots of what porn producers are producing you mean?

'american culture' also stipulates that it is illegal to disseminate
pornographic material to minors.. but this is not being enforced at all
against the US pornography industry..

-> $$$

~~~
mirimir
From porn producers, yes. And on ~mainstream TV, for example Alessandra
Torresani in SyFy's Caprica: [https://bestofcomicbooks.com/wp-
content/uploads/2018/12/Ales...](https://bestofcomicbooks.com/wp-
content/uploads/2018/12/Alessandra-Torresani-sexy-2.jpg)

Also lots of amateur content.

And just search about preteen fashion.

It's mostly about money, yes.

~~~
cat199
> lots of amateur content.

this presumes that mass media doesn't have any bearing on the culture it
broadcasts to, when in fact, it is a two-way street.. and also that this is a
representative sample size.

~~~
mirimir
Of course it's a two-way street.

But the fact remains that "sexy young woman" is a hugely popular theme in US
culture. Also in many other cultures. But the US seems particularly
schizophrenic about it.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
Youthfulness and pedophilia are very different things. I don’t even see a hint
of pedophilia in the SyFy image you posted. She looks feminine and young, but
not like a child.

------
eganist
Interesting seeing this response from both Facebook and Twitter on the exact
same day.

Guessing from this:

> Based on a tip shared by Twitter about activity they found on their
> platform, we conducted an internal investigation into suspected coordinated
> inauthentic behavior in the region and identified this activity. We will
> continue monitoring and will take action if we find additional violations.
> We’ve shared our analysis with law enforcement and industry partners.

that the simultaneous response was coordinated by both platforms... I'd go so
far as to say that it was coordinated in order to demonstrate the capability
to self-moderate ahead of the 2020 US elections.

~~~
Aperocky
It's likely due to this:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Yi_Bar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Yi_Bar).
Which organized a widely popular anti-protest campaign about 2 days ago, the
online community had about 30 million members. Members proceeded to use VPN to
spam anti-HK protest posts/comments on FB/instagram/twitter. This is
consistent with the behavior of this community in the past (mass trolling,
mostly apolitical but sometimes political, this community is pretty
nationalist to begin with).

~~~
justicezyx
No, Li Yi Bar is more of trolling group from self-organized netizens. They do
share comfroming ideology as Chines government.

What's banned here is government organized activity.

If this is indeed from Li Yi Bar, then it should not be called government
organized activity.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
It does not really matter if one can prove that something is government
directed, because “coordinated inauthentic” behavior is sufficient reasonable
grounds to take action.

An individual expressing their own pro-government views from their own account
is fine. An individual pretending to be someone else, or multiple people, is
not, regardless of the content.

~~~
pishpash
What about multiple people coordinating to express an unpopular opinion
together, each of their own volition? You know, kind of like a protest.

Just call this what it is, subjective censorship. Of course they give a
different reason to skirt by on technicality. But if it were an extremely
popular opinion being shared millions of times, it would just be called a
viral meme and FB and Twitter wouldn't be making subjective judgements on
authenticity.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
What about it? It’s allowed. Do you not see the distinction? Inauthentic
activity. Fake accounts. So no, this isn’t subjective censorship at all,
that’s the point.

------
gaze
"We’re constantly working to detect and stop this type of activity because we
don’t want our services to be used to manipulate people." What do they think
advertising is?

~~~
tzs
Most advertising is attempting persuasion, not manipulation.

~~~
NoodleIncident
Going even further, a lot of people in the advertisement industry see it as
just providing a way for companies to inform consumers that their products
even exist. The point of ad targeting in this worldview is to figure out who
already wants to know that certain products exist, not to change anyone's mind
by getting them to purchase something they don't want to.

~~~
cameronbrown
As someone who's worked with ads campaigns, yes that's true and entirely how I
thought about it, but there are so many bad apples too, those disgusting
Taboola ads as an example.

------
Waterluvian
Shouldn't they replace all the content with, at least, a short note saying
what was formerly here was part of a "coordinated inauthentic behavior" and
that the individuals representing themselves here were not real?

~~~
metalliqaz
Hard to say if they would want those remnants on their platform, but it would
be really great if these things were funneled to the FBI who published reports
of state-sponsored misinformation activities so we could cite them as examples
later on.

------
AlexCoventry
They've been doing that more transparently on r/Sino, too.

~~~
thepangolino
Part of Reddit is essentially owned by the Chinese government.

~~~
AlexCoventry
Really? Where's that documented?

~~~
hokumguru
[https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/11/reddit-300-million/](https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/11/reddit-300-million/)

~~~
AlexCoventry
Thanks, I'd forgotten about that.

------
trhway
Algorithms to detect algorithms. The latter have to become more and more
genuine and authentic in order to fool the former which are forced to become
better and better ... Soon the genuineness, authenticity and complexity of the
latter will exceed Shakespeare writing his plays (some say even that was a
fake - in this case i subscribe to Marlowe theory) and we, regular humans,
will be left in the dust... Too stupid a post - yea, that is a real human, let
it through :)

------
MikeGale
I find the obvious propaganda (like this) both amusing and useful (well in
this case not very useful).

It exercises the immune system against the ever flowing rubbish that is so
much of the Internet, Press, Politician bit dribble...

In this case it was so very obvious that it wasn't that useful. I'd be happy
to see it still there to give me a laugh.

Also a bit insulting, these guys seem to assume that I'm a weak minded fool
who will get taken in by this obvious nonsense.

~~~
KirinDave
The point of propaganda isn't actually to promulgate a lie that obscures the
truth. It's to promulgate a lie that people will repeat. It may eventually
reach a scale where it can eclipse the truth, but by then it's generally done
its job.

You may not be a weak minded fool, there surely are SOME people who are who
will be genuinely moved by the now-banned content. Those people will then
repeat credulously an idea, making it easier for folks who know better to
repeat an idea. That's generally how propaganda starts. Eventually it becomes
unquestionable.

~~~
liability
There are many purposes of propaganda, a term which is not synonymous with
falsehoods. Some propaganda tells the truth, and some lies. Some propaganda
merely conveys a sentiment that is neither true nor false.

Consider _" Loose lips sink ships"_ or _" Uncle Sam Wants YOU"_ Those are both
_classic_ propaganda lines and neither is promoting a falsehood.

~~~
KirinDave
> Consider "Loose lips sink ships" or "Uncle Sam Wants YOU" Those are both
> classic propaganda lines and neither is promoting a falsehood.

I agree with this and these are good examples of what I was talking about.

I was responding specifically to the propaganda at hand and MikeGale's
comment, "Also a bit insulting, these guys seem to assume that I'm a weak
minded fool who will get taken in by this obvious nonsense."

------
hker
To understand the bigger picture of this propaganda campaign on Hong Kong’s
protest, check out an allegedly leaked instruction on how China controls the
media (picture in Chinese and translation to English [1], transcribed in
Chinese [2]).

[1]:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/csj4ca/chinas_pro...](https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/csj4ca/chinas_propaganda_strategy_for_the_hong_kong/)

[2]: [https://pastebin.com/anMtU0Lz](https://pastebin.com/anMtU0Lz)

Edit: it is interesting to see that a sibling comment of mine [3] on another
thread on Twitter’s reaction got overwhelming upvotes, while this comment on
FB’s reaction got a downvote.

[3]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20742525](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20742525)

~~~
jlgaddis
> _Edit: it is interesting to see that a sibling comment of mine [3] on
> another thread on Twitter’s reaction got overwhelming upvotes, while this
> comment on FB’s reaction got a downvote._

Yes, it's almost as if different people -- with different opinions -- read and
reacted to two comments posted 5 hours apart on separate threads.

------
tehjoker
Lol if they ever do this because of US interference.

------
mschuster91
I wonder when the US and other Western countries finally start cracking down
on China and Russia with harsh sanctions for all the manipulation they're
doing.

Oh wait, they can't, as all manufacturing was outsourced to China and that
would be the first thing China cuts off...

Sarcasm aside: how can the West possibly react on the events of the last
years?! There's not many options available any more.

~~~
vallismortis
Great question. I've been dealing with APTs from Russia (and to a lesser
extent China) for two years now, and there is nobody out there to help
independent sites.

GDPR recently drove us to build our own application level firewall from
scratch, which turned up behavior that is never reported by CloudFront or
Google Analytics - those services are only hiding the severity of the problem.

~~~
katbyte
Maybe a silly question, but what is an APT?

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Advanced Persistent Threat - a hacking group that finds an open door (or
creates on by phishing), gains access, spreads little backdoors and malicious
code into a bunch of machines, any of which, if removed, can be re-created by
the others. Not easy to detect, _very_ hard to get rid of once infected. Many
groups have differences in the tools they use, which enables those in the know
to say "Oh, that's APT X" when they look at an infection.

You may have heard of "Fancy Bear". That's one APT out of Russia.

For more information, see
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_persistent_threat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_persistent_threat)

------
weq
Like every other Conservative party in the world doesnt do the same? This is
my problem with these actions. They are selective based on political
affiliation.

I dont care if they are communists, socialists, or the run of the mill
capitalists. The only reason twitter and facebook still exist in their current
form, is because the poltical establishments all over the world have worked
out to leverage them for their advantage.

Politics has not escaped the disruption that other industries have suffered.
Its like any other targetting advertising campaign. How are mining companies
who put out poltical properganda too undermine environmental movements any
different?

[https://www.theguardian.com/australia-
news/2019/mar/08/natio...](https://www.theguardian.com/australia-
news/2019/mar/08/national-disgrace-glencore-coal-campaign-revelations-prompt-
calls-for-reform)

------
nodesocket
While this is not going to be a popular opinion, you have to give credit where
credit is due to Trump. Without his campaign to crack down on Chinese
practices (including Huawei) and bringing massive attention to China via the
active trade war and tariffs I doubt social media such as FB and Twitter would
in-acting these policies. He brought political pressure onto China where there
was little to none by previous administrations.

~~~
commandlinefan
Maybe it’s the conspiracy theorist in me, but I see the exact opposite: there
are a lot of people who believe that “coordinated, inauthentic behavior” on
social media platforms allowed Trump to win the 2016 election, and that a
crackdown on anything perceived to be “coordinated and inauthentic” will
prevent him from doing so again in 2020. To me, this just feels like a
cynically convenient excuse to get ready to remove content arbitrarily in
advance of next year’s election cycle.

~~~
nodesocket
I actually argue that the social media campaigns were much more negative
against him. Google literally had a all-hands (leaked video) after the
election where Brin and C-level executives were activists against Trump and
conservative news outlets. Brin called the election results “offensive”.

~~~
metalliqaz
He did many offensive things, it's not really in dispute. It isn't a secret
that he thrives on controversy. It's also not in dispute that foreign actors
took advantage of the social media structure to stoke animosity and resentment
ahead of the elections (at least, not in dispute among anyone serious). Execs
in silicon valley would be correct to be horrified at what their
infrastructure was used for and the results.

The FBI has posted many examples of the propaganda. It was not "much more
negative" against Trump. That's a falsehood.

------
wzy
"We’re taking down these Pages, Groups and accounts based on their behavior,
not the content they posted."

Hmm...

~~~
azinman2
FB doesn't want to be a content police, behind the principal of freedom of
speech. They're instead looking at metadata that reveals that it's fake and
attempting to pursue an agenda. I am certainly no FB apologist, but I think
the language of 'coordinated inauthentic behavior' is a really smart one that
well defines the problem.

~~~
ryacko
The phrase is so vague as to be meaningless. They may as well have said
“organized opinion setting”.

I miss the time when there was a massive debate over the legality of removing
the video Innocence of Muslims, to the extent there were op-eds suggesting
that Youtube pursue an advisory opinion before removing it. Now it is all but
certain that FAANG has the right to remove whatever, without question, without
appeal.

And in most EULAs, certain categories of dispute go to arbitration.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Well, is "organized opinion setting" something they should allow? What if it
pretends to not be organized? What if it's organized by a government? What if
the "opinions" are that the government organizing the opinions would be right
to oppress those with differing opinions?

Is there anywhere in there that you think a line should be drawn?

~~~
ryacko
Are we going to be arguing about reductionist philosophy?

People are autonomic agents, yes. People share opinions, yes. Governments are
comprised of people, yes.

The line was quite eloquently drawn during World War One when it was illegal
to protest the draft. Or the Civil War.

There is no real answer to the question of whether is this immoral or moral,
and thus I must voice my opinions.

------
moosey
> We’re constantly working to detect and stop this type of activity because we
> don’t want our services to be used to manipulate people. We’re taking down
> these Pages, Groups and accounts based on their behavior, not the content
> they posted. As with all of these takedowns, the people behind this activity
> coordinated with one another and used fake accounts to misrepresent
> themselves, and that was the basis for our action.

To suggest that the practices of facebook in general - likes, the activity
feed, and various experiments that facebook has in its history - is not itself
an attempt by a coordinated group to manipulate people, is itself disingenuous
at best. In order to correct this to honesty, they would have to clarify that
they don't care for external groups - other than those who pay for advertising
services - to be permitted to manipulate people.

This take down of a few pages being followed by 15k people and its subsequent
information release is itself a manipulation, to make it appear as if facebook
is doing something about the glaring problems that I personally think it
represents. It seems to me that in the halls of power today, there are few
good actors, and this tiny morsel doesn't make facebook one of them, and does
nothing about the manipulators on their platforms that are beyond their
ability to take down, despite self-serving dishonesty from so many groups.

In other words, what a skillfully crafted news release from facebook, give
that marketer a raise.

