Better headline: ex employee thinks there are too many fake Facebook pages accounts
Facebook slow to address political manipulation outside wealthy, western nations
11–20 of 158 posts
Re: Facebook slow to address political manipulation outside wealthy, western nations
#12Because of the sensational headline, I'm not even going to click on this. Is there even a real difference between The Guardian and the Daily Mail?
I suspected the headline was sensationalist but on reading the article, I would say it isn't, and the headline is correct.
It has examples of the campaigns of national political parties of different nations (hence world leaders) using a loophole that facebook pages can do certain things facebook accounts can't to boost their engagement and/or avoid the scrutiny an account would get.
It also has a really good non-techy breakdown explaining how it works. I think it's HTML5? Having read it, I would say it's a really good piece of journalism.
Re: Facebook slow to address political manipulation outside wealthy, western nations
#13The Guardian has more coverage in this article, which was published at the same time:
"How Facebook let fake engagement distort global politics: a whistleblower's account" - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/apr/12/facebook-...
It's interesting how Guy Rosen, a co-founder of the spyware company Onavo, is now Facebook's "vice-president of integrity":
> Facebook had “moved slower than we’d like because of prioritization” on the Honduras case, Rosen wrote. “It’s a bummer that it’s back and I’m excited to learn from this and better understand what we need to do systematically,” he added. But he also chastised her for making a public complaint, saying: “My concern is that threads like this can undermine the people that get up in the morning and do their absolute best to try to figure out how to spend the finite time and energy we all have and put their heart and soul into it.”
> Rosen had joined Facebook in 2013, when the company acquired his startup, Onavo, a mobile web analytics company that Facebook would go on to use to track usage of rival apps.
Details on Onavo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onavo
Re: Facebook slow to address political manipulation outside wealthy, western nations
#14Because of the sensational headline, I'm not even going to click on this. Is there even a real difference between The Guardian and the Daily Mail?
I tend to agree, but the Guardian does have expert knowledge on the subject of deceiving and harassing citizens.
After I read your comment the second time 5 minutes later, I had a realization (?): Are you actually being sarcastic? (That would explain the downvotes too. And your username.)
Re: Facebook slow to address political manipulation outside wealthy, western nations
#15I wonder if writers of articles like this are aware of the complexity of a problem like this, algorithmically, legally and ethically. All 3 are insanely difficult.
> the complexity of a problem like this, algorithmically, legally and ethically.
I disagree with the framing of this as "complexity" when it's really "Facebook's profits would be reduced/Facebook's business model would be compromised".
The complexity comes from Facebook's goal of maximising profits within the permitted algorithmic and legal space.
Re: Facebook slow to address political manipulation outside wealthy, western nations
#16Better headline: ex employee thinks there are too many fake Facebook pages accounts
Let me give you some more context rather than this shitty throwaway cynicism. This is an issue that the employee thought was important enough to share that she had to give up almost $70k in severance. https://twitter.com/szhang_ds/status/1381518041737949185?s=2...
Re: Facebook slow to address political manipulation outside wealthy, western nations
#17The quick summary here is that while a person is supposed to have only one Facebook account, that account can have an unlimited number of Facebook pages, which can all be set up to look like individual users, and can all comment, like, and post just like an individual user.
The article gives examples of these pages making hundreds of pro-government comments on various political posts.
Re: Facebook slow to address political manipulation outside wealthy, western nations
#18I wonder if writers of articles like this are aware of the complexity of a problem like this, algorithmically, legally and ethically. All 3 are insanely difficult.
The incredible thing is Big Tech has convinced us the solution is "too expensive" when they are making hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue. Here's the truth - if you own a social media platform and you allow for microtargeting and psychological profiling, you have responsibility for what's mass shared throughout.
EXACTLY. Micro-Targeting must be regulated world-wide to not allow it for political ads etc.
Re: Facebook slow to address political manipulation outside wealthy, western nations
#19Because of the sensational headline, I'm not even going to click on this. Is there even a real difference between The Guardian and the Daily Mail?
It's an article about governments creating fake facebook pages posing as people to influence political debate on facebook.
Detailing how it works and as well as how slow facebook are to respond.
What is sensational about that? Unless you dislike reporting of propaganda efforts by governments.
Re: Facebook slow to address political manipulation outside wealthy, western nations
#20Better headline: ex employee thinks there are too many fake Facebook pages accounts
But you think that's not a problem?
That fake accounts that signal boost support for political figures is fine election campaigning?