
Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda - ucaetano
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-12-21/inside-the-facebook-team-helping-regimes-that-reach-out-and-crack-down
======
decebalus1
Remember this?
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15790687](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15790687)

To some extent it's still going on. Protests are still happening (and it's
really bad) so lately I've been noticing a bunch of - what I think are - shill
accounts. Couple of days before I went through some of the posts in news post
about the protests and identified several profiles with no personal pictures,
no posts, posting in broken Romanian about:

\- anti-protests

\- anti-EU and basically nationalistic bullshit

\- religion and how that will solve everything

\- government does nothing wrong and protesters are a bunch of thugs

\- links to well-known fake news websites

\- inciting violence while appearing to be pro-protest

Groups of accounts such as these are brigading some popular news postings and
I don't really find them inside the anti-protester echo rooms.

the accounts look and feel similarly to the spam profiles which were prevalent
a few years back having supermodel headshots as profile pictures.

I reported about 12 such profiles and the response from Facebook was that I
should block these accounts as a resolution, as they aren't doing anything
wrong per Facebook community guidelines and they are legit accounts.

In contrast, 'famous' people who are famously anti-government (and trolls,
that's true, like this guy:
[https://www.facebook.com/macacaur](https://www.facebook.com/macacaur)) are
getting their accounts disabled every couple of weeks and require photo ID
proof to re-enable.

~~~
narrator
How do you know what goes on outside of your direct perception anyway? It used
to be conventional media channels and they would print what was arguably
propaganda, but there wouldn't be any Russian trolls to poke holes in it.

Imagine if the Iraq WMD story broke now. All those Russian trolls spamming
Facebook running around saying it was bullshit. That would be total chaos! Why
don't people trust the mainstream?

The reality is that propaganda works. You think you know what fake news is and
what's reality, but we never did and most people follow the time-honored
tradition of letting our chosen authority figures tell us who is conspiring
with the bad guys. This frees us from the cognitive pain of considering their
arguments and evidence because they are puppets of some nebulous evil forces
and therefore safe to ignore.

~~~
linkregister
When the Iraq WMD situation unfolded, it was met with plenty of skepticism.
“MSM” gave it air time, but it was overcome by the deception of the
administration at the time, e.g., Sec. Powell’s statements and the cherry-
picked CIA assessment.

Your example actually undermines your argument.

If anything, we need honest actors around to poke holes in narratives produced
by authorities, not ones with the goal of weakening society.

This goes for nations that experience interference from the US as well. It
makes sense that Iranian society should protect itself from covert US attempts
at influence.

~~~
chiefalchemist
It was "overcome" because the reporting had little backbone to begin with.
Most of the rest of the world was demanding proof but the MSM did little to
make the American public aware of that. Powell, the IC statements, etc. were
just part of the theatre, part of the spin.

The bottom line was, the MSM was on board and played a key roll in the WMDs
snow job.

~~~
willyt
But no-one believed it. At the time there was a protest of well over 1M people
in London against the war. Which is huge, between 1.5% and 3.3% of the entire
population of Britain. My work actually gave us the day off to go to it.

~~~
chiefalchemist
Yes, basically that's what I said. That is, the USA MSM "under-reported" the
lack of belief internationally. The American people were sold fiction and they
gladly bought it.

~~~
erikpukinskis
That’s simply not true. There was a huge anti-war response in the U.S. too.
The country was very divided on the subject.

~~~
chiefalchemist
Wrong issue. The issue here is the validity of the WMDs. There would be no war
debate is that lie was exposed for what it was (i.e., a lie).

------
fortythirteen
Imagine if ABC/CBS/NBC actively went to political parties and sold them on
buying their way into the scripts of the top prime-time sitcoms to shape the
opinion of viewers.

That's essentially what Facebook is doing out in the open.

~~~
734786710934
The writers for most prime-time sitcoms are Democrats. They do it for free.

~~~
pdpi
I’ve always suspected that the reason underwood is a democrat in house of
cards is solely to deflect this very criticism.

~~~
hkmurakami
Honestly I think it makes him more "relateable" by making him not "the enemy"
for viewers

~~~
DigitalJack
>Honestly I think it makes him more "relateable" by making him not "the enemy"
for viewers

Does this mean you think all viewers are democrats (or even most) and that
republicans are the enemy?

~~~
raverbashing
On the Netflix subscriber, likely to watch new shows demographic?

I believe betting on "most side with Democrats" is a safe bet

~~~
guelo
Why? Half the country votes Republican.

~~~
raverbashing
Read it again, slowly:

> On the Netflix subscriber, likely to watch new shows demographic

\- How many people don't have internet?

\- How many people won't/can't sign up for Netflix? (think also in Urban/Rural
demographics)

\- How many people have Netflix but are not interested in a new show?

I'm not saying no Republican watches House of Cards, I'm saying it is biased
towards Democrats

------
IronWolve
I find it laughable that facebook/twitter/etc says it cant tell the difference
between "kill Jews" and "kill Palestinians". But 1 groups kill messages will
mostly not be censored.

Then they hire or allow groups to enforce rules who also cant tell the
difference, and allow the "Kill Jew" statements to stay.

Yet, seems, most of US can see both "kill xxx" statements are equally bad and
should be removed. I don't think most of us have any special skills that make
us enlightened, just not so partisan heavy in attitude.

------
frgtpsswrdlame
It's a pretty bad look. When I think of social tech I think of the possibility
to magnify the voice/reach of individuals. When I read an article like this
all I see is that magnification going solely to big spenders. How do I form an
independent political ideology if I'm only being told the part of the story
that heavily monied interests want me to hear? Would I ever experience an
anti-monied-interest being put on a level playing field with the monied
interest?

~~~
dqpb
Here is a thought experiment:

Imagine a social platform with a nice API, no moderators, no global filters,
and you're looking at a thread focused on a particular political issue.

Now imagine there is a chatbot that can enumerate every position a person
could possibly take about this issue and generates a couple hundred thousand
slightly unique strings of words that express each of these positions, and
floods the thread with these "comments".

Lets say the volume of content produced by the chatbot is so high that if a
user were to randomly browse comments in this thread, there is no
statistically significant bias in favor of a particular position.

Now the question is how can you enable the users to find "truth", or learn
anything, or even meaningfully communicate with other users within this
context?

~~~
frgtpsswrdlame
I'd say the difference is in this:

>Now imagine there is a chatbot that can enumerate every position a person
could possibly take about this issue and generates a couple hundred thousand
slightly unique strings of words that express each of these positions, and
floods the thread with these "comments".

If there are hundreds of thousands of strings then I absolutely can't. But I'd
say on most issues there are probably max a few hundred positions. If I have
to crawl through the same positions restated different ways over and over then
truth is lost, if I can quickly browse one unique string for each position
then it will take dedication but I can suss out what I believe and have some
sort of backing for it.

Dealing with information overload is sort of the unique problem of our times I
suppose.

------
makomk
What continues to fascinate me about stories like this is just how nakedly,
obviously partisan the post-Trump reporting on the evils of social media is.
Compare this with, for example, the tone of all the stories about how the
Obama campaign used social media to win the previous election...

~~~
mtberatwork
If I recall, the bulk of those stories occurred during Obama's first campaign.
At that time social media was still in its infancy (Twitter, I believe, was
only about a year old) and was a new phenomenon.

------
arun_einstein
Should also remember that media as a industry dislikes new comers like
facebook which are taking away their absolute power. They had such sway before
social media, that the only news coming from these oligopolies were news and
the rest was propaganda.

Facebook with all its flaws is still a much more open system compared to
traditional media. If you have fake news campaigns you can also make fact news
campaigns, whereas with traditional media outlets, you'd have to setup
expensive paper or tv channels to actually even begin to address a problem
with the existing industry.

This is felt quite sharply in India, about which this article complains. The
person who killed the journalist in the article is yet to be found. Her own
brother gave a statement that it might have been the doing of left-wing
extremists in India. Unless you know who is culpable how can you insinuate it
was due to some 'nationalist right wing trolls'? This article is just another
witch hunt.

~~~
barrkel
If you've ever been caught up in a mob and felt yourself losing your identity
in the crowd, so that you could get swept away doing things you'd never do
alone, you'll know how dangerous unstructured freedom is for people.

We're tribal animals, but we're almost herd-like when we get caught up. It's
important that the institutions that whip up the herd and point it around have
some kind of checks and balances. We try and get by with the notion of
offending public decency, of using concepts like honesty and integrity to
shame people into doing the right thing, but it doesn't come naturally - it
needs to be chosen, repeatedly and maintained.

------
oliwarner
I can't help but feel we're approaching a reckoning, in both senses, for
platforms selling targeted access to their users.

It's just too powerful.

On one side it's propaganda, on the other it's illegal hiring practices (eg
only advertising to young, able bodied men). I can't imagine a democratic
world will tolerate this much longer.

~~~
659087
I sure hope you're right. It's far beyond time for the "changing the world!"
and "Don't be evil" style feel-good propaganda of Silicon Valley to be pulled
back to reveal the reality of what it has been used as cover for.

------
wavefunction
Here's what I don't get. I got back onto facebook about six months ago after
deleting my previous account. I was using the account to auth into news
article commenting systems.

Within 24 hours I apparently had ticked someone off who had reported me,
because my account was locked until I scanned a photo ID of myself and
uploaded it.

If that happened to me, why isn't it happening to _everyone_?

~~~
autokad
one time facebook suggested a friend, i got confused and clicked it thinking
they were requesting friendship. the person responded by clicking they didnt
know me and my account was banned for 3 days.

facebook kinda sucks

~~~
maxxxxx
It's like getting credit card offers saying you are "pre-approved". then you
apply and get declined.

~~~
ascagnel_
It's like a credit card offer that says you're pre-approved, but when you
apply you get declined _and_ your credit score drops significantly.

------
qubex
Facebook’s Community Standards are a total joke... no later than two days ago
I came across a cartoon of a guy on public transport taking an ’upskirt’
without the woman’s consent only to start puking when he saw on his phone that
she was menstruate (I kid you not). I of course reported it instantly. I
promptly got an anodyne notification that ”I had done the right thing”
reporting it it but that it was found ”not to violate Facebook’s community
standards” so would not be taken down. I reported it again (this time as
”nudity or pornography”) and within 20 minutes my account was suspended for 24
hours. They’re dirt. And they’re too powerful.

~~~
slavik81
From your description, it sounds like you abused the reporting tool by
reporting content that you knew did not violate the stated guidelines. Their
response was to temp-ban you. To me, that seems reasonable.

It doesn't really matter that it was a shitty, gross joke. That's not the
criteria for removal, and they told you that before you reported it again.

Though, a temp-ban might be a little harsh. If the only problem was with
reporting, they could easily have dealt with that by silently ignoring future
reports from your account.

~~~
qubex
I was unbanned within a couple of hours and the cartoon was nowhere to be
found when I was allowed back in, probably because there was a deluge of
coincident reports.

~~~
slavik81
I see. So, the thrust of your complaint is not that moderation is too lax, but
that it is capricious and arbitratry? I could definitely see consistent
moderation being a weakness for Facebook.

~~~
qubex
Basically, yes. I wish I had summarised my point in those terms. I was just so
incensed at that moment in time that I didn’t plan my post very carefully.
Sorry and thanks.

~~~
slavik81
I did the same thing the other day. That's an easy mistake to make.

------
vadimberman
I remember back in late 1990s to early 2000s there was a fad for
scaremongering articles about how computers and the Internet are the root of
all evil.

Looks like it's the turn of social networks now.

> In India, the company helped develop the online presence of Prime Minister
> Narendra Modi, who now has more Facebook followers than any other world
> leader.

...Seriously? How about another article on SEO companies training political
campaign managers how to gain better ranking in Google?

~~~
bagacrap
I think the point is that this is a group within Facebook, when Facebook has
claimed that its status as a platform means it's not culpable (for hate
speech, Russian sock puppets, age-biased job postings, etc.).

------
killjoywashere
Facebook is different. Their leadership has clearly aligned with the
Republican party on an operational level. Remember, Zuckerberg gave King Bush
the Second his first big public engagement after his retirement. People who
support Democrats may use the machinery of Facebook, but when Facebook wants
steer the machine, they steer it, ever so slowly and quietly, toward Lakoff's
strong father, and away from his nurturant parent.

------
rdiddly
So what the CIA used to do on behalf of "American interests," Facebook now
does without even _that_ much of a moral compass.

------
panini_tech
the stuff about that lady "Gowri Lankesh" is misreported here.

Left wingers wish to link that murder to the state whereas the lady had a
reputation of defamation and the courts had ruled her to apologize for abusing
people without proof.

Her family & her brother had disowned her due to her lies and was actually
involved with mafia elements. please follow her twitter posts asking for peace
among her friends who were "warring".

Overall Modi government is voted by Majority Indian population and FB just
came into lobby against the Net Neutrality which was rejected by The Indian
Government rightly.

Attributing Modi government success to FB is spreading news without substance.
FB might be meddling in Indian affairs but thats FB's problem.

------
codeisawesome
It is indeed very interesting to consider that the vast majority of internet
enabled people across the world don’t read Hacker News, don’t read Bloomberg
editorials - they just check their Facebook feed...

------
Indolat
Ah Facebook... I stumbled upon a con artist's account on Facebook once. And I
couldn't find any way to report it as a scam.

~~~
ct0
Im taking this comment at face value. It's not that hard to report a user for
at least the past 3 years.

~~~
Indolat
You can report a user for "hate speech" or something like that. There isn't
any option to report a fraudulent account.

~~~
rock_hard
Not true. I just did so myself a couple weeks ago

~~~
Indolat
I didn't see any option for that. Got a screenshot?

------
foodislove
This is why I don't want Mark Zuckerberg in any public office. I really think
the guy has no moral compass because all his actions point to a very sinister
"money is everything" attitude and that everything has a price.

~~~
rndmize
Come now, Zuckerberg doesn't even need public office. He's more powerful where
he is now than he could ever be in an elected position. Just based on the
information in the article, he could offer technical embeds to campaigns he
likes and ignore the ones he doesn't, or provide them with a much smaller
degree of assistance, with no one the wiser. I don't think there's a single
person in the world with as much potential to impact elections and policy
choices as Zuckerberg today.

~~~
freeflight
> He's more powerful where he is now than he could ever be in an elected
> position.

Exactly, an elected position would come with even more publicity, actual
responsibilities and the possibility of being held accountable for his
actions.

It's far more convenient and efficient for him to stay out of that system and
just play it from the outside.

~~~
kelukelugames
I don't know if that's true. Do we have more transparency into Trump's income,
businesses, or even taxes after he became president?

~~~
joelrunyon
> I don't know if that's true. Do we have more transparency into Trump's
> income, businesses, or even taxes after he became president?

Owning a bunch of hotels is a fundamentally different type of power than
owning a demographic database + messaging system used to manipulate people's
moods.

------
beedogs
Frankly, the world would be a much better, safer place without Facebook in it.

------
jhiska
"Dark art" is really glorifying what those desk jockeys do.

It's just a bunch of organized paid trolls with fancy ideas about themselves
and what they do, because it's all secret-y and covert-y, but really, they're
incompetent people who after slamming their head against the problem many
times have group-devised by trial-and-error rather nifty ways of manipulating
online conversations.

Any place where you can add a comment is manipulable, but their manipulations
only work if people aren't aware of their existence in the comments section
and of their good-cop / bad-cop group tactics, the methodological flaws of
anonymous online voting and why noise-flooding works.

------
LeoJiWoo
Its a time of political upheaval worldwide.

Nationalists are rising or at least becoming more vocal in at least Britain,
India, United States, Austria, Germany, Korea, and Japan.

They are direct threats to the established status quo. Censoring their
political speech will cause a "Streisand Effect" and only further galvanize a
backlash against the establishment.

Social Media will probably be broken up by country (Ex. The chinese model), so
that national laws on speech can be enforced.

However pros and cons of the new political groups must be debated on a public
stage.

~~~
pwaai
Not all of these protests or nationalism were organic, they were _engineered_
by Russia. ex) Brexit

There is increasing number of evidence that points to the ex-KGB officer now
leading a nuclear armed 2.5 world country.

If they can pull one on the US, the rest of Eastern Europe, or frankly any
country facing an authoritarian government will face this new 'hybrid
war'\--combining cyberattacks, psy-ops on social media and backing separatists
in the said country.

I fear for both of my countries Korea and Canada as they are on the trajectory
of colliding with Russian & Chinese interests...and we cannot even trust the
US while it's going through an internal conflict.

We've collectively realized just how powerful these social media platform
is....people are heads down on their smartphones consuming low-dopamine hits
that eventually overrides critical thinking.

I also think that Facebook and Twitter are going to be facing a political and
legal uphill battle once the establishment has thoroughly finished analyzing
exactly step by step what happened.

Honesty, regardless of his outside image, Putin is sweating. Instead of
lifting sanctions he's earned the exact opposite. Instead of keeping former
soviet blocs in check he scared them to the arms of US & Nato. This unrest he
caused will fade as the US media ramps up their own psy-ops against Putin.

I will go far as to predict that the Russian Federation will be broken into
multiple countries in the near future as their economy is destroyed by the
West....with China picking up scraps and benefiting greatly from the brain
drain.

~~~
alva
> they were engineered by Russia. ex) Brexit

Yes, the 73 pence spent by Russia on covering Brexit (the paid tweets were RT
twitter promotions ) were responsible for Brexit. Not that Britain has had a
vocal euro-sceptic contingent for over 40 years, satisfaction with the EU has
been minor and the EU's handling of the refugee crisis.

None of that. It was due to the 73p of Russian promoted tweets.

~~~
pjc50
Quite. The British press has been doing its own indigenous fake news on Europe
for years, before being flooded by this inferior foreign product.

/s

------
leakybit
I don't really see a problem here. Facebook is providing training/guidance to
customers on how to use it's software platform. Every other advertising
platform allows political organizations, so why should Facebook be any
different.

~~~
quadrangle
You mean you don't see a UNIQUE problem here.

"How X enables the Dark Art of Digital Propaganda" would be an issue of
interest and concern NO MATTER WHAT THE X IS.

~~~
leakybit
Which is the point. In reality the appropriate title is more along the lines:
"How media enables Propaganda", so why single out just Facebook when they're
just conforming to the industry standard?

There's a simple solution to this, which is to write legislation to ban
commercial political ads.

~~~
quadrangle
I have the same inclination about ads, but I'm highly skeptical that such a
solution would work fully. I'd be willing to give it a try though. The problem
is bad enough that it's _worth_ throwing solutions out and trying them until
we see what sticks.

The point about Facebook anyway, singling them out, is that it _happens_ to be
an article about Facebook and how they _in particular_ do this. A similar
article on "How Fox News…" or "How ESPN…" or "How the NYT…" would be
appropriate also in the case that any of those places had a dedicated
political unit which was interesting to report about, especially if it
contradicts the way the entity prefers to present itself.

Of course, it's reasonable to focus on Facebook merely in their dominance.

And finally, it's _possible_ at least that Facebook is actually worse in some
ways (or just more _effective_ at spreading propaganda etc), and I'm not ready
to rule that out.

