[deleted]
Facebook reveals Russian troll content, shuts down 135 IRA accounts
11–20 of 61 posts
Re: Facebook reveals Russian troll content, shuts down 135 IRA accounts
#12IRA = Internet Research Agency for those confused by the title, i.e. the russian "troll" company.
Thanks for this. Reusing already-prominent acronyms gets really confusing although I know often it's unintentional. Many Americans won't know who the IRA were/are, but in the UK (and probably the rest of Europe) it's common knowledge and burnt in.
id say middle age and older people would. they were shown in various movies during the 90s but yea. younger people probably think of the IRA savings account.
Re: Facebook reveals Russian troll content, shuts down 135 IRA accounts
#13This is too little too late for Facebook. They are just trying to save as much face as possible now.
Re: Facebook reveals Russian troll content, shuts down 135 IRA accounts
#14Are we ever going to see any of the controversial posts and ads that supposedly influenced the US election? I don't see anything US politics or election related in the samples they showed.
Re: Facebook reveals Russian troll content, shuts down 135 IRA accounts
#15> Facebook has removed 70 Facebook accounts, 138 Facebook Pages, and 65 Instagram accounts run by the Russian government-connected troll farm and election interference squad the Internet Research Agency This looks like a fairly small amount of accounts.
Yes, it is likely there are hundreds of thousands of accounts, not just a few dozen. Over time, we'll see. Twitter and all the rest have also come out with "it was just a few accounts, see, we've even gone and deleted them". But it's not that few. Edit: Also, those few accounts pack a punch. > 1.08 million users followed at least one of the Facebook Pages, and 493,000 users followed at least one of the Instagram acco…
Is there any specific reason you said hundreds of thousands of accounts, and not tens of thousands, millions, or dozens?
Re: Facebook reveals Russian troll content, shuts down 135 IRA accounts
#16This is too little too late for Facebook. They are just trying to save as much face as possible now.
It remains to be seen whether these scandals will have any real effect in the long run. Facebook grew to be a behemoth, now it seems almost "too big to fail".
Re: Facebook reveals Russian troll content, shuts down 135 IRA accounts
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, it is likely there are hundreds of thousands of accounts, not just a few dozen. Over time, we'll see. Twitter and all the rest have also come out with "it was just a few accounts, see, we've even gone and deleted them". But it's not that few. Edit: Also, those few accounts pack a punch. > 1.08 million users followed at least one of the Facebook Pages, and 493,000 users followed at least one of the Instagram acco…
Is there any specific reason you said hundreds of thousands of accounts, and not tens of thousands, millions, or dozens?
Just an order of magnitude guess. It could be tens of thousands, it could be millions, I'm just an outsider looking in. But it seems clear that it is at least a couple orders of magnitude more than just the 70 they found and publicized so far.
Re: Facebook reveals Russian troll content, shuts down 135 IRA accounts
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there any specific reason you said hundreds of thousands of accounts, and not tens of thousands, millions, or dozens?
Just an order of magnitude guess. It could be tens of thousands, it could be millions, I'm just an outsider looking in. But it seems clear that it is at least a couple orders of magnitude more than just the 70 they found and publicized so far.
This is not how it works. The goal of these accounts was to build a following to be able to influence more people. A page with a couple of hundreds likes or followers will have much more impact than a million accounts with no followers. Building audiences to influence people is hard and takes time. It is much more probable that there are around 70 accounts than millions. Sorry to be that blunt but do you know anything about this matter?
Re: Facebook reveals Russian troll content, shuts down 135 IRA accounts
#19Are we ever going to see any of the controversial posts and ads that supposedly influenced the US election? I don't see anything US politics or election related in the samples they showed.
> "We removed this latest set of Pages and accounts solely because they were controlled by the IRA — not based on the content.”
Re: Facebook reveals Russian troll content, shuts down 135 IRA accounts
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just an order of magnitude guess. It could be tens of thousands, it could be millions, I'm just an outsider looking in. But it seems clear that it is at least a couple orders of magnitude more than just the 70 they found and publicized so far.
This is not how it works. The goal of these accounts was to build a following to be able to influence more people. A page with a couple of hundreds likes or followers will have much more impact than a million accounts with no followers. Building audiences to influence people is hard and takes time. It is much more probable that there are around 70 accounts than millions. Sorry to be that blunt but do you know anythin…
Well that's rude.
> The goal of these accounts was to build a following to be able to influence more people. A page with a couple of hundreds likes or followers will have much more impact than a million accounts with no followers.
Of course. I do not mean to suggest that every single account that the Russians created was a success or has millions of followers. I am positing that they likely created many many accounts, and I would presume many of those accounts gained few followers and exerted little influence (edit: although, some influence is some influence; even 1 follower can be meaningful).
> It is much more probable that there are around 70 accounts than millions.
I disagree - I think it is much more probable that there are hundreds of thousands of accounts. I certainly don't think there would be millions (who brought that up anyway? wasn't me) as that seems too high to be real. It's just a guess, though.
> Sorry to be that blunt but do you know anything about this matter?
Yes, I do. You're not being blunt, you're being rude.