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Facebook Says It’s Policing Fake Accounts, but They’re Still Easy to Spot

nytimes.com

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Re: Facebook Says It’s Policing Fake Accounts, but They’re Still Easy to Spot

#11

Post by stingraycharles »

menacingly wrote: post #5

I get that facebook my have complicated motives here, but I don't know that "easy to spot" is a good yardstick. First, there are the countless instances where something is trivial for a single person to suss out that doesn't scale. Second, and perhaps most importantly, I don't think simple hunches about fake accounts are really actionable here. Having an account that "originated in the Middle East" that now presents…

I agree with this sentiment. While you want to develop a scalable filter that is able to police these kind of things, the flip side may be even worse — discrimination, racism, etc. Just look at the backlash that YouTube is getting for their recent changes in their algorithm, if Facebook gets even slightly too many false negatives the backlash is likely to be a lot worse.

I would hate to stand in Zuckerberg’s shoes here. It seems like they will lose this fight, no matter what. The solution might be more political than technical; that is, to teach people to be skeptical and use proper judgement when reading news articles.

But that’s most likely too much to ask.

Re: Facebook Says It’s Policing Fake Accounts, but They’re Still Easy to Spot

#13

Post by oae9043nteo »

lostapathy wrote: post #2

A major failing with Facebook's process for reporting accounts is that there is no way to enter any text to help them figure it out. I have seen numerous accounts that are breaking the TOS, but it's only obvious if you know some other bit of easily verifiable information. Without fail, whenever I report one of these accounts facebook tells me "thanks but they're fine, feel free to block them if you still feel this wa…

Thank you for pointing this out! This drives my spouse nuts. I don't have an account myself, but she's flagged things before, and the options are different every time. When they even have the correct option, the result is always exactly as you say - Facebook says it meets community standards no matter how blatantly it's breaking their TOS. It's absolutely insane some of the threatening stuff she's seen that's considered OK. (Luckily none of it directed at her.)

Re: Facebook Says It’s Policing Fake Accounts, but They’re Still Easy to Spot

#14

Post by rosser »

Unless I missed it in skimming The Fine Article (I have a couple minutes between standup and another meeting, so time constraints), they're overlooking an, IMO, obvious tell.

For months now, whenever I've clicked on one of the "trending" stories in the right sidebar, I've seen a wall (not intended) of public posts that are verbatim, to the terrible grammar and obvious non-native English speaker phrasing, copies of one another.

If you have a bunch of accounts posting the same string of text, attached to the same link (or even just links that are grouped together topically), maybe those should be subject to further scrutiny as possibly being "fake"?

Re: Facebook Says It’s Policing Fake Accounts, but They’re Still Easy to Spot

#15

Post by lithos »

cryptoz wrote: post #4

A real shocker for me is how little the big tech companies are using their AI powers for defensive purposes. Each smart-project they undertake to detect your friends in your photos and identify cats in pictures is done for a directly profitable feature. But with Twitter and Facebook both getting caught letting foreign actors buy political ads and use fake personas to influence the population, it seems like an existen…

I listened in online to the intelligence and judicial committees. Kennedy and Cruz were pretty excited to bash Facebook's head with their oversights. And are probably hoping to get Facebook and Google both back in front of them. A bunch of other members spent time trying to get all three to say/agree to needing to be regulated.

They are already in the middle of a very expensive and shackleing threat. It's just playing games to come out less behind (even if that's just going to be increased lobbying).

Re: Facebook Says It’s Policing Fake Accounts, but They’re Still Easy to Spot

#16

Post by marcinzm »

menacingly wrote: post #5

I get that facebook my have complicated motives here, but I don't know that "easy to spot" is a good yardstick. First, there are the countless instances where something is trivial for a single person to suss out that doesn't scale. Second, and perhaps most importantly, I don't think simple hunches about fake accounts are really actionable here. Having an account that "originated in the Middle East" that now presents…

The issue is also one of false-positives. Even if you could spot fake accounts 100% of the time if you also flagged 1% of legitimate accounts as fake by that approach then it's non-viable. Remember that at Facebooks scale a 1% false-positive rate means 20 MILLION accounts. That's too much to even try sending for manual review.

Re: Facebook Says It’s Policing Fake Accounts, but They’re Still Easy to Spot

#17

Post by komali2 »

stingraycharles wrote: post #11
menacingly wrote: post #5

I get that facebook my have complicated motives here, but I don't know that "easy to spot" is a good yardstick. First, there are the countless instances where something is trivial for a single person to suss out that doesn't scale. Second, and perhaps most importantly, I don't think simple hunches about fake accounts are really actionable here. Having an account that "originated in the Middle East" that now presents…

I agree with this sentiment. While you want to develop a scalable filter that is able to police these kind of things, the flip side may be even worse — discrimination, racism, etc. Just look at the backlash that YouTube is getting for their recent changes in their algorithm, if Facebook gets even slightly too many false negatives the backlash is likely to be a lot worse. I would hate to stand in Zuckerberg’s shoes he…

Could always do what 4chan did and just ban all Russian IP addresses.

https://twitter.com/4chan/status/741452104112439296

(joking...)

Re: Facebook Says It’s Policing Fake Accounts, but They’re Still Easy to Spot

#18

Post by hyperpape »

lostapathy wrote: post #2

A major failing with Facebook's process for reporting accounts is that there is no way to enter any text to help them figure it out. I have seen numerous accounts that are breaking the TOS, but it's only obvious if you know some other bit of easily verifiable information. Without fail, whenever I report one of these accounts facebook tells me "thanks but they're fine, feel free to block them if you still feel this wa…

Not only that, the reporting process and categories were weird. A few months ago, I got a series of friend requests with similar pictures (a naked woman with the name of some website superimposed). I dutifully reported them, but there was no "spammer" option, and none of the categories really fit. At least one time, I got a response that I could block the user, but no confirmation that they were deleted.

Re: Facebook Says It’s Policing Fake Accounts, but They’re Still Easy to Spot

#20

Post by nnfy »

jokoon wrote: post #19

By "policing fake accounts" they also mean "hunt down real accounts who don't use their real name, and ask for a scan of your ID".

That was one of the final straws for me. I don't think anyone should trust Facebook with enough information to completely take over someone's real life identity.

FB feels authoritarian in a very Orwellian way, and it is even scarier that, much like Orwell wrote, nobody seems to care. We might not be burning books a la Bradbury, but we seem to be burning away our rights to privacy as a complicit society.

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