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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

#21

Post by Stranger43 »

rosser wrote: post #14

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 on…

Except of cause that's also how very real grassroot movement's look especially those not made up of American college students, i.e. you have a fairly high chance of chance of you accidentally targeting a few thousand genuine users.

Remembering that almost all of facebooks growth potential is outside of the US. Facebook really cannot afford to just kick off people based on not being us college students.

The problem is that while it might be easy to find someone who diverges from what the nytimes think the correct mainstream should be from a beltway centric viewpoint, it's far harder to differentiate between a bot and some yahoo posting her local mainstream view from a netcafe somewhere in Siberia.

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

#22

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#23

Post by anigbrowl »

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…

They don't care anyway. A while back I got a notification that a sexually explicit picture had been removed from my page. I had never seen the picture in question, said so, and asked where it had been posted, as I was worried that my account had been compromised. They completely ignored the question and I got back a standard 'we've reviewed the picture and found it's not compliant with our community standards' reply.

Their 'community standards' are also bullshit, of course, since the community of users has exactly zero input into the design of said standards. People can share video of violence and murder freely (though it may need a click-through to view), and I'm OK with that as some imagery can be both violent and newsworthy. But anything sexual is treated as toxic. My wife got banned for a week sharing a photo of a statue in a museum.

Like many people, I'd really like to leave the platform but not the network of friends that I communicate regularly with. And no, email and or other channels are not good substitutes. Any alternative has to offer at least the same degree of functionality/convenience to be worth using.

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

#24

Post by anigbrowl »

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…

The market prioritizes short-term results over long term public goods. Think about it in microeconomic terms, aiming for a simplistic price equilibrium will give you the lowest common denominator outcome. The premise of the utility function selects for crap.

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

#25

Post by azemetre »

dhimes wrote: post #7
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…

it seems like an existential risk to them Maybe the problem is that they don't think this is true. How will it put them out of business? Lawsuits? Government forcing them to pull the plug? People not using the platform because fake stuff is there? I'm not convinced that the end result of any one of these paths will be strong enough to wreck their businesses.

If people realize that not many users are actively using these platforms it would decrease the value of ad buys.

I mean if 20% of all Twitter users are bots that would be detrimental to the sales department. If Twitter knew how many users are bots and did nothing it might be considered a form of fraud and deceiving investors.

Why should I buy ads on a platform that are overpriced if the ads will not be seen by legitimate users?

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

#26

Post by joatmon-snoo »

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…

https://xkcd.com/1425/

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

#27

Post by menacingly »

rosser wrote: post #14

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 on…

I've noticed this too. It's not even just politics. You'll click topics about TV shows and see a ton of the exact same long post with errors from different people in different cities. Some descend into markov chain gibberish while others appear to be trying to genuinely sway public opinion in favor or Kim Kardashian or whatever

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

#28

Post by jmcqk6 »

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…

>First, there are the countless instances where something is trivial for a single person to suss out that doesn't scale.

This is an interesting argument to me. It's basically conceding a shittier solution, because we "can't scale" the effective one. As we talk more and more about automation, I think this is similar to what we've seen in meat space with things like tools.

I've heard so many people complain about chinese hammers or socket wrenches (though I also know there are quality chinese tools out there) or many other examples. Things mass produced cheaply are lesser quality, but we're willing to make the trade off as a society because we get things for cheaper.

And now we see this in the information economy. Even though we know a human doing this work would be much more effective, we're not going to do it because the cost is too high.

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

#29

Post by [deleted] »

marcinzm wrote: post #16
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.

[deleted]

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

#30

Post by rosser »

Stranger43 wrote: post #21
rosser wrote: post #14

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 on…

Except of cause that's also how very real grassroot movement's look especially those not made up of American college students, i.e. you have a fairly high chance of chance of you accidentally targeting a few thousand genuine users. Remembering that almost all of facebooks growth potential is outside of the US. Facebook really cannot afford to just kick off people based on not being us college students. The problem is…

> ...you have a fairly high chance of chance of you accidentally targeting a few thousand genuine users.

Which is why I said "further scrutiny", and not robo-ban.

The tone of these posts is very much, and very consistently the whole "sow dissension" and "poke at wedge issues" shtick that is demonstrably part of how the Russians have been meddling in our shit — and which Facebook, perhaps knowingly, profited from. (Unless you're also suggesting that's somehow part of the "correct... beltway centric" narrative that NYT, &c, "think" we should have, and which is instead some kind of false-flag, psy-ops disinfo campaign — in which case, never mind; please don't waste my time further.)

As your sibling comment describes them, they so often have a feel of "Markov chain gibberish", and not just "not being us college students" or "someone who diverges from what the nytimes think the correct mainstream should be".

EDIT: Parenthetical.

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