Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Facebook slow to address political manipulation outside wealthy, western nations

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 158 posts

Re: Facebook slow to address political manipulation outside wealthy, western nations

#41

Post by HenryBemis »

qwertox wrote: post #32
commoner wrote: post #13

The 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 pri…

> It's interesting how Guy Rosen, a co-founder of the spyware company Onavo, is now Facebook's "vice-president of integrity" Sounds like a bad joke.

Sounds like a perfect fit for Facebook.

Re: Facebook slow to address political manipulation outside wealthy, western nations

#42

Post by BrianOnHN »

ethbr0 wrote: post #27
freddealmeida wrote: post #21

I think we need a new journalism. One that can avoid the last 20 years of structured news. Though I think this is impossible now. Not without an outsized reaction by the population that doesn't even care. Facebook exists because most people can accept those crimes committed against them. They really don't even understand them all. Shit Zuckerburg uses Signal. Nothing surprises me anymore

We don't need a new journalism, we need a new economic model to support the old old journalism (pre-1990s). The three foundational planks that we've since lost are (1) strong newsroom editorial control of content, independent of revenue, (2) long form & investigative journalism as a stable, viable profession, & (3) journalists and journalism outlets with reputation (able to counter-balance the weight of those they re…

While I agree, this reads as "faster horses."

Though I would be for it, half of the US will vehemently oppose funding "fake news" with tax dollars.

That leaves "ditching the horse altogether" as the only option.

What does that look like?

Re: Facebook slow to address political manipulation outside wealthy, western nations

#43

Post by m-p-3 »

franklampard wrote: post #31
mhoad wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure if you actually read the article but it was written with the whistleblower who was literally a data scientist and kept pointing out how easy it was to clearly identify (and therefore stop) these cases in question. They weren’t sophisticated in any way. The problem here wasn’t that it was difficult, it’s because Facebook had no incentive to care

a data scientist fired for poor performance

Which can be used as an excuse to dismiss her without putting Facebook in trouble for discrimination or retribution.

Re: Facebook slow to address political manipulation outside wealthy, western nations

#44

Post by cblconfederate »

Facebook is worse than state-controlled media in those countries, and they have a moral obligation to stop doing business in oppressive countries. People know that state-controlled media is biased, but oppressive leaders can demand censorship from facebook at whim and nobody knows about it.

And i would not be surprised if bribes inside facebook are involved , as some of those countries are known to run extensive bribery operations e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azerbaijani_laundromat

Re: Facebook slow to address political manipulation outside wealthy, western nations

#45

Post by CaptainZapp »

commoner wrote: post #13

The 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 pri…

> Guy Rosen, a co-founder of the spyware company Onavo, is now Facebook's "vice-president of integrity"

Isn't that just the perfect match, based on how Facebook defines "integrity"?

Re: Facebook slow to address political manipulation outside wealthy, western nations

#48

Post by fakedang »

franklampard wrote: post #31
mhoad wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure if you actually read the article but it was written with the whistleblower who was literally a data scientist and kept pointing out how easy it was to clearly identify (and therefore stop) these cases in question. They weren’t sophisticated in any way. The problem here wasn’t that it was difficult, it’s because Facebook had no incentive to care

a data scientist fired for poor performance

A data scientist fired for poor performance because she didn't perform some perfunctory tasks while she dedicated herself to investigating and uncovering all these fake bots.

Re: Facebook slow to address political manipulation outside wealthy, western nations

#49

Post by HenryBemis »

CallingOutBS wrote: post #26
freddealmeida wrote: post #21

I think we need a new journalism. One that can avoid the last 20 years of structured news. Though I think this is impossible now. Not without an outsized reaction by the population that doesn't even care. Facebook exists because most people can accept those crimes committed against them. They really don't even understand them all. Shit Zuckerburg uses Signal. Nothing surprises me anymore

> Shit Zuckerburg uses Signal Was this ever confirmed? Is it possible Zuckerberg just installed it to check out the competition? Is it possible he has it installed as a WhatsApp backup, if FB/WhatsApp is down (exactly the sort of thing the CEO of FB/WhatsApp needs to be prepared for)? And we've concluded "Zuckerberg uses Signal"?

If he installed it for 5mins to 'test the competition'.... then.... he did it on his "main" phone? Don't they have throwaway phones for that? Would he allow his full contact list to be uploaded?

Re: Facebook slow to address political manipulation outside wealthy, western nations

#50

Post by SSLy »

cblconfederate wrote: post #44

Facebook is worse than state-controlled media in those countries, and they have a moral obligation to stop doing business in oppressive countries. People know that state-controlled media is biased, but oppressive leaders can demand censorship from facebook at whim and nobody knows about it. And i would not be surprised if bribes inside facebook are involved , as some of those countries are known to run extensive brib…

I live in one of those countries (Poland), and certainly the state-controlled media/energy/industry conglomerate is worse, thank you.
Post reply on HN