
Facebook busts Israel-based campaign to disrupt elections - yasp
https://www.apnews.com/7d334cb8793f49889be1bbf89f47ae5c
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yasp
> _Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy, told reporters
> that the tech giant had purged 65 Israeli accounts, 161 pages, dozens of
> groups and four Instagram accounts._

> _The activity appeared focused on Sub-Saharan African countries but was also
> scattered in parts of Southeast Asia and Latin America, what Brookie called
> a “staggering diversity of regions” that pointed to the group’s
> sophistication._

> _The fake pages, pushing a steady stream of political news, racked up 2.8
> million followers. Thousands of people expressed interest in attending at
> least one of the nine events organized by those behind the pages. Facebook
> could not confirm whether any of the events actually occurred. Some 5,000
> accounts joined one or more of the fake groups._

> _Gleicher said the misleading accounts primarily aimed to influence people
> in Nigeria, Senegal, Togo, Angola, Niger and Tunisia._

> _The most significant audience engagement was generated in Malaysia, which
> has a vast media market and held a general election last year, according to
> Brookie and his team at the Atlantic Council._

> _Facebook investigations revealed that Archimedes had spent some $800,000 on
> fake ads, paid for in Brazilian reals, Israeli shekels and U.S. dollars.
> Gleicher said the deceptive ads dated back to 2012, with the most recent
> activity occurring last month._

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jacquesm
We're getting very close to the point where elections in democracies can
really be bought. As imperfect as print newspapers were for the purpose of
informing the citizenry (see: manufacturing consent) it was the devil that we
knew, the new devil has a level of venom that is much more powerful.

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yasp
I've yet to see any data on how effective these social media ops actually are.

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Bluestrike2
It's a tough effect to analyze effectively, given how indirect and
disconnected the effect they're aiming for is from their ops. But the thing
is, they're really, really cheap in relative terms. With the ones run by
nation states, even a minor return is going to be an infinitesimal part of
their budget with very little risk to them. Even minor successes would be more
than sufficient.

I mean, the Army funded the Stargate Project[0] for nearly two decades. Social
media ops have at least an advantage or two over staring at goats.

0\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_Project](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_Project)

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stebann
We will end up with boundaries for the "Internet". Each country will have its
own "Internet" beacuse they are distrusting each other now.

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roseway4
The accessibility of these tactics, barring significant changes to Facebook’s
model, is inevitably going to lead to private entities copycatting the
strategies proven out recently by nation states. Expect to see more of this
occurring as regional powers exert influence over neighbors and domestic
players do so for internal gain (as documented in the OP). Political
subversion at scale and for hire.

