A Whistleblower Says Facebook Ignored Global Political Manipulation (buzzfeednews.com) 52
Facebook ignored or was slow to act on evidence that fake accounts on its platform have been undermining elections and political affairs around the world, according to an explosive memo sent by a recently fired Facebook employee and obtained by BuzzFeed News. From the report: The 6,600-word memo, written by former Facebook data scientist Sophie Zhang, is filled with concrete examples of heads of government and political parties in Azerbaijan and Honduras using fake accounts or misrepresenting themselves to sway public opinion. In countries including India, Ukraine, Spain, Bolivia, and Ecuador she found evidence of coordinated campaigns of varying sizes to boost or hinder political candidates or outcomes, though she did not always conclude who was behind them. "In the three years I've spent at Facebook, I've found multiple blatant attempts by foreign national governments to abuse our platform on vast scales to mislead their own citizenry, and caused international news on multiple occasions," wrote Zhang, who declined to talk to BuzzFeed News. Her Linkedin profile said she "worked as the data scientist for the Facebook Site Integrity fake engagement team" and dealt with "bots influencing elections and the like."
"I have personally made decisions that affected national presidents without oversight, and taken action to enforce against so many prominent politicians globally that I've lost count," she wrote. The memo is a damning account of Facebook's failures. It's the story of Facebook abdicating responsibility for malign activities on its platform that could affect the political fate of nations outside the United States or Western Europe. It's also the story of a junior employee wielding extraordinary moderation powers that affected millions of people without any real institutional support, and the personal torment that followed.
"I have personally made decisions that affected national presidents without oversight, and taken action to enforce against so many prominent politicians globally that I've lost count," she wrote. The memo is a damning account of Facebook's failures. It's the story of Facebook abdicating responsibility for malign activities on its platform that could affect the political fate of nations outside the United States or Western Europe. It's also the story of a junior employee wielding extraordinary moderation powers that affected millions of people without any real institutional support, and the personal torment that followed.
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Agreed!
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You wish. They're too useful - FB's home country intelligence services ran *one* op through facebook, and managed to set on fire the whole of North Africa and pushed its main rival - the EU - into disintegration.
s/ignored/actively profited from/ (Score:2)
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Re:Abdication of responsibility. (Score:5, Insightful)
If we are going to have global censorship, is Facebook really the best organization to be the Ministry of Truth?
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Where did this come from? Who was suggesting "global censorship"? You might be posting under the wrong article...
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Who was suggesting "global censorship"?
Sophie Zhang, among many others.
Doesn't this violate her NDA? (Score:2)
Facebook may close her account.... permanently.
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It's not about censorship, it's about access to a tool/platform.
For example, if a customer wants to use Oracle's cloud services to coordinate a genocide (say they want to maintain a database of who needs to be killed, maybe run some AI to find them), and Larry Ellison is aware of the intended use of these services, should Oracle do business with that customer?
You may say that's obviously illegal, so let's extend it further. Say a fentanyl manufacturer in a country where the drug is legal wants Oracle to run
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We regulate dangerous stuff all the time. Cars must pass safety standards, for example. Under 18s aren't allowed to consume alcohol, nobody is allowed to drink and drive.
Maybe we should think of Facebook as something very dangerous that we need some rules to protect ourselves from.
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It's not about censorship at all. It's about a platform that allows broadcasting of false information to targeted groups of people. So that the general public doesn't see it, but conspiracy theories take solid root before they can be exposed.
Facebook's targeted advertising platform is fine when used to sell shoes to people looking to buy shoes. It's not so fine when it's used to sell ideas - propaganda and fake truth to susceptible groups of people - often in the form of false flag operations. Facebook
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Antifa's command and control structure when?
I'm pretty sure that's just Portland coffee shops.
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Before the great censorship drive of 2016 there were laws to set the limits on free speech. Those should have been enough.
Thank you for the memo, (Score:1)
Thank you for the memo, Captain Obvious. I have totally never noticed any bias or the likes on Facebook.
Give me a break... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think what Obama did should be disallowed either, just that anyone in the US who feels no one else in the world should weigh in on their elections is an absolute hypocrite and loses my respect. Who cares what someone says or what memes are posted on social media? If you have evidence of direct hacking or altering voting results, let me know, otherwise literally everything about election interference (added bonus if you push a Russian boogeyman) is laughable stupidity and just anger from some Americans their side didn't win.
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Above board only in the sense that he didn't try to hide his identity. Of course, if he'd made his endorsement anonymously, it wouldn't have had quite the same weight, would it have?
Would you be ok with a Russian disinformation post that ended with, "My name is Vladimir Putin, and I approve this message"?
Re:Give me a break... (Score:5, Interesting)
What Obama did was above board because he was trying to get people to vote the right way.
The Russians were bad because they were trying to get people to vote the wrong way.
Hillary was supposed to win. She didn't. So the Democrats had two choices:
1. Advocate policies that appeal to working-class people in the heartland.
2. Blame the Russians.
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What Obama did was above board because he was trying to get people to vote the right way. The Russians were bad because they were trying to get people to vote the wrong way. Hillary was supposed to win. She didn't. So the Democrats had two choices: 1. Advocate policies that appeal to working-class people in the heartland. 2. Blame the Russians.
I understand your cynicism about the tribe you dislike, but how about these four simultaneous propositions?
1. Hilary would have lost with or without Russian involvement
2. Russian involvement in the US election was just fledgling, barely enough to move the needle.
3. Russian involvement in US civil life is likely going to ramp up
4. Social media is a form of asymmetrical warfare, in that authoritarian regimes can defend against it more readily by clamping down, but democratic countries can't.
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Obama said what he said using his own name, and his own reputation. Thus, as the recipient of his words, you/Canadians were able to make up their own minds.
Interference in elections doesn't say simple stuff like "vote the other guy!", it's subtle and anonymous. Thus it's hard to actually trace it to any real source, so can't be evaluated based on merit or reputation. It's also continuous and relentless. If you're being targeted, you don't get a break from it, and eventually, pretty much everyone will be inf
And yet another example of moderation fail (Score:2)
The parent comment is rated 20% Troll at the time of this comment, which is blatantly partisan. The comment is entirely reasonable in tone and in content. Mods, you aren't supposed to mod posts down just because you disagree with them! If they stay on point and make a good argument, you should be upvoting them instead.
The parent comment is also moderated as 30% Overrated, which I would call "suspiciously" partisan but not conclusively so. How is it even possible for a post moderated as Troll to /also/ be
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He made an argument in bad faith by comparing two unlike things (comparing Obama's public endorsement of Trudeau to surreptitious Russian disinformation campaigns). Blatant fallacies that undermine an entire post—whether intentional or not—amounts to trolling. It's not like the mods should consider whether he was trolling intentionally or just accidentally made a trollish argument. It walks like a troll, quacks like a troll. . .
I've also posted stupid stuff before that got modded troll. In most
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Sorry, but I cannot see your point of view on this. He wasn't comparing Obama's public endorsement of Trudeau to Russian disinformation campaigns, he was was comparing examples of stupid things to cry wolf over.
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I didn't say that he was off-topic. I said that he made an inappropriate comparison.
I don't think what Obama did should be disallowed either, just that anyone in the US who feels no one else in the world should weigh in on their elections is an absolute hypocrite and loses my respect. Who cares what someone says or what memes are posted on social media? If you have evidence of direct hacking or altering voting results, let me know, otherwise literally everything about election interference (added bonus if you push a Russian boogeyman) is laughable stupidity and just anger from some Americans their side didn't win.
How is that not comparing Obama's endorsement of Trudeau to the Russian disinformation campaign (which he also obtusely downplays as just some memes and social media posts)? By saying that complaining about one is just like complaining about the other—or, a matter of "crying wolf"—he is clearly comparing the two situations and arguing that neither are serious. But they are clearly not the same. One is a wolf and
Re: And yet another example of moderation fail (Score:2)
Facebook ignored something awful (Score:2)
Facebook ignoring (Score:1)
DUH!
What a revaluation.. Hudda thunk it.
Legalities (Score:2, Interesting)
what a mess (Score:2)
On one hand, Facebook is just a platform. Perhaps the message is tailored for the platform. But would the message be different on another platform? Is anyone's life in immediate danger?
On the other hand the "don't ask, don't tell" approach is just turning a blind eye. A small fire doesn't have to become a nation-wide inferno.
I'm so swayed by a single persons opinion (Score:3)
So this person found multiple blatant attempts by foreign national governments. So, what do you want to do about it? Do you want to be the police of the world? Maybe people didn't agree with how you wanted to deal with this.
You personally made decisions that affected national presidents without oversite. Oh you mean like every election cycle in every country where you try and make one person bad and one person good so others will... wait for it.... vote for them.
Do you really think this hasn't been going on for years, well before Facebook? Here's a thought: Read what you want, think about it, do some research and come to your own conclusions.
Junior employee wielding extraordinary powers: You think very highly or yourself. It's good to have confidence. Of course I don't use Facebook so your powers have no effect on me.
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So, what do you want to do about it?
Didn't you RTFA?
If the government of Azerbaijan is misleading people, the obvious solution is for an American corporation to step in and run their country for them.
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Unless they are an 'ally' , then the government can assist Silicon valley in suppressing the inauthentic voices in the country.
It gives weight to the proposition that... (Score:3)
Facebook is thought of as a mass media publisher.
One where there is no ethics involved.
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One where there is no ethics involved.
A soapbox on a street corner has no ethics either.
That doesn't mean we should ban speaking on street corners.
"Whistleblower" ? (Score:2)
Failures? And past tense? (Score:2)
I doubt Mr Zuck sees any of it as a failure. When you're an asshole, destroying others' is success.
And why is the title in past tense when this is very much current?
"Amplification is not freedom of speech. Amplification is a business choice for profit." - Zucked, Roger McNamee.
And in other news ... (Score:2)
Does anyone really think that these things weren't going on before? And it's only 'the bad guys'? The US has been shown to have to manipulated foreign countries to guide them to the leaders the US government wanted in power. The media has long been a pawn for foreign leaders to spread their opinions on who should be elected in the US.
I'm so glad that YouTube has a 'skip ads' button so I can skip political ads. They are all total BS, spreading
It was its business plan. (Score:1)
It was not a coincidence that the huge growth of facebook users happened at the same time as the bots ramped up.
Its share price shot up because all those users. More bots were welcome by them, what harm could they do?
Advertising still pays, when your targets can be robots. That was facebook's big secret.
What does it care if they help install fascist governments? They still get paid.