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Facebook Has Been Autogenerating Pages For White Supremacists (arstechnica.com) 97

Posted by BeauHD from the that-was-easy dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Researchers at the Tech Transparency Project found that Facebook created dozens of pages for groups like the "Universal Aryan Brotherhood Movement" when a user did something as simple as listing it as their employer. Some of the autogenerated pages garnered thousands of likes by the time they were discovered by researchers. TTP also discovered four Facebook groups that had been created by users. The researchers shared their findings with Facebook, which removed most of the pages. Yet, two of the autogenerated pages and all four Facebook groups remained active when the group published its findings. Facebook reportedly banned "white nationalist" content following the 2019 mass shooting at a New Zealand mosque, expanding on an earlier ban of white supremacist content.

It wasn't hard for the researchers to find offending pages and groups. They simply searched Facebook for the names of neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups identified by the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center. More than half of the groups in their query of 221 names returned results. A total of 113 white supremacist organizations and groups had a presence on Facebook, sometimes more than one. One user-generated page that has been active for over a decade had 42,000 likes. Ten other pages and one group had more than 1,000 likes each. [...] Facebook's own user-interfacing algorithms have also been coming up short. TTP found that on a page for an organization called the "Nazi Low Riders," Facebook recommended that users also like a page for the "Aryanbrotherhood." The company's tactic for combatting rising extremism on the site also appears to be failing. Searches for known hate groups are supposed to direct users to the page for Life After Hate, a nonprofit group that seeks to deradicalize right-wing extremists. But that only worked in 14 of the 221 searches the researchers performed.
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Facebook Has Been Autogenerating Pages For White Supremacists More

Facebook Has Been Autogenerating Pages For White Supremacists

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  • I'm shocked that sewagebook is still a cesspool.

    • "Fecesbook" might be a better name.

      • "Fecesbook" might be a better name.

        Deadbook will soon be more accurate.

        What happens when 2 billion humans congregate on a social media platform for a couple of decades?

        The worlds largest digital graveyard.

        Ah, nothing like the fresh smell of zombie clicks to validate those page views...

      • Re:sewagebook (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Thursday March 25, 2021 @07:04PM (#61199310)

        "Fecesbook" might be a better name.

        We are relearning what many of us had already experienced years ago

        Rather like the "Tragedy of the Commons"

        An open resource such as Facebook is destroyed by it inadvertantly catering to the absolute worst and loudest of society, including those with an interest in destruction of a society.

        This is merely a repeat of the destruction of UseNet where people with some severe psychosexual issues who went group by group in a sort of range war with each other, until all of the normal users abandoned the group. And since part of the tittilation of the kooks was annoying the normal folks, it just wasn't much fun any more, so the nuts moved on to another group, and started all over again.

        The digital divide has allowed a different sort of person onto Facebook, and has allowed a different group that uses them to gain political means. But it's the same sort of destructive mechanism, as others with differing views move in to fight with them.

        The one main difference is that Facebooks algorithms end up encouraging radicalization. If you go to a conservative group, you get "suggestions" for other groups to join or check into. I have watch people get radicalized in this fashion. The"suggestions are always a little more extreme, and if you keep clicking them, and are weak minded enough, you become just as nutty.

        I've seen it with a friend who ended up kooky Christian, another friend who went way far right (to the point of considering Fox News as a tool of the Liberals) and a couple who went far left, and are working at purging the lexicon of offensive things and rewriting history.

        Facebook is busy destroying itself, and as soon as the reasons that I have to have an account and pages there, go away, I will as well. It is a terrible and toxic place.

        Finally, come on users - every page you go to, every response to algorithms you make is being used to provide data about you to parties that are not necessarily working towards your best interests.

        • Can anyone really want lIce, vladbot, and the rest come to FB? I mean, the carnage was magnificent, but it turned Usenet into something 'use' could not be part of.

          We abandoned our overnight feeds when it became useless. Long time ago. I haven't been back.

          Still, I'm confused. FZB is autogenerating pages for these 'white supremacist' whats??? Just users? Apparent businesses? Are they that stupid?

          • Can anyone really want lIce, vladbot, and the rest come to FB? I mean, the carnage was magnificent, but it turned Usenet into something 'use' could not be part of.

            We abandoned our overnight feeds when it became useless. Long time ago. I haven't been back.

            "More with the punce gotcha! Dunno if you remember that guy. He was determined to get around blocking, and would open a new email account for each message he'd post.

            Then there was "Crisco Cathy". These people originated Doxxing too. If anyone had a criminal record, they'd post the whole thing. I left for two reasons on the same day. First was I saw the signal to noise ratio had gone negative, and I was spending too much time blocking people, and the second reason was I figured if my wife came into the th

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by rtb61 ( 674572 )

          People do not get radicalised on Facebook. The simple congregate togethor in groups with stuff they already believe in. It is nothing more than a large filtering and sorting engine. Sorting individuals into groups of like minded individuals.

          When you start off with large numbers even tiny percentages becomes thousands and tens of thousands, still a tiny, tiny percentage and a very small minority. Go onto that website, offend the tiny minority and thousands are now harrasing you, still a tiny, tiny percentag

          • People do not get radicalised on Facebook.

            So the woman was already a religious fundamentalist even though she seemed like anything but, the guy was a QAnon believing white supremacist already, and the people who want cancel culture to purify the country to a SJW version of heaven were already that way from the start.

            > That presupposes that they were all liars in the early years I knew them. Including the White supremacist who apparently didn't believe in science at all, while becoming an engineer.

            Sorry you don't believe my thesis, but yours

            • Yes, they already believed that sort of thing but never formed a group where they would get validation from like-minded people or share the "logical conclusions" together. Remember, voting is anonymous. Earlier you could support SJWs by voting for the party that supports SJWs and feign ignorance because you were not a politician. Now you will be bombarded in media about the "deplorables" that exist in your part and how you should take responsibility for voting them into power.

              Is that a good thing? Bad thing

              • Fixed, sorry:
                *I don't think Facebook is responsible for that and I think it is being made a space goat because it is rather politically neutral platform.

              • Yes, they already believed that sort of thing but never formed a group where they would get validation from like-minded people or share the "logical conclusions" together.

                I can't buy that. Sorry - that assumes that most everyone lies about everything. The suddenly Facebook enables them to stop lying in public.

                Remember, voting is anonymous.

                One of the strangest things that people believe. When I go to vote, I sign in. I get a numbered ballot. The number is in the book. I pull off a tab after I put the ballot into the scanner.

                This is one of the ways that voter fraud is detected. Even if the individual votes are not looked at - they obviously are - the numbered ballot can be referenced to the sign in book,

                • Do you know who your voter voted for and why? If not then it is anonymous. The same way the admin knows my ip address and you don't. The same way I am not allowed to post as AC while someone else who posts swastikas is.

                  I can't buy that. Sorry - that assumes that most everyone lies about everything.

                  I think you are letting your hatred of the "other side" cloud your judgement. There are some people who lie. If they are good at it and then can convert it to money and want to do it professionally they become pol

                  • Do you know who your voter voted for and why? If not then it is anonymous.

                    So you are saying that when a person can trace my specific ballot which has who I voted for clearly marked, back to me, via my signature, the ballot number, and my voter regeisrtation information, it is somehow something that is completely anonymous?

                    Dood! Tell me how they detect voter fraud? They find people who vote multiple times. If that voet is untraceable - they would simply not be able to find it.

                    They find people who vote for their dead relatives.. If it was untraceable and anonymous, it would no

        • destruction of UseNet

          That wpuld be head legal do gooder NY attorney general and major ISPs all afraid of child porn, that and saving a buck not running the servers. The righteous/powerful will tear down FB right before they finish off the internet proper, but the'll blame the kooks.

          • destruction of UseNet

            That wpuld be head legal do gooder NY attorney general and major ISPs all afraid of child porn, that and saving a buck not running the servers. The righteous/powerful will tear down FB right before they finish off the internet proper, but the'll blame the kooks.

            This was a later action. Those groups were about all that was left after the mass destruction of the groups for normal people. I suspect that the weirdos who caused all the destruction liked the groups where they might chance upon some kiddie diddler stuff, so they left them alone.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by shanen ( 462549 )

      And if you complain about it, then Facebook starts dicking with you.

      Actually, I just realized that what happened to me yesterday was probably related to my complaints about exactly these sorts of Facebook pages. However I think that some of the pages I complained about were deliberately created to support scamming spammers. It took me about what-felt-like about 20 minutes of struggling to prove I was allowed to log back into my Facebook account. Is that dickish enough for you and Facebook? (But no, I can't

    • Never mind that. Does Universal Aryan Brotherhood Movement have any job postings on LinkedIn? Asking for a friend.

  • "I had made up my mind how I was going to handle McCarthy. This was to ignore him. ⦠I would give him no satisfaction. Iâ(TM)d never defend anything. I donâ(TM)t care what he called me, or mentioned, or put in the papers. Iâ(TM)d just ignore him."

  • So in recent Congressional testimony ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Thursday March 25, 2021 @05:33PM (#61199108)

    Facebook Has Been Autogenerating Pages For White Supremacists

    Maybe Mark Zuckerberg should have simply answered, "Yes" when asked in Congress if Facebook bore any responsibility for the Jan 6, 2021 riot in DC?

  • Why I quit facebook over a decade ago (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RightwingNutjob ( 1302813 ) on Thursday March 25, 2021 @05:33PM (#61199112)

    Lots of rapid-fire policy changes that resulted in automatic posting of stuff on your profile page without requiring opt-in and providing very little in the way of opt-out.

    No way to control your public profile without compulsively logging in to make sure it didn't put random crap under your name. Back then it was more likely to be a picture of a drunk kid in your friend list partying and making a fool of himself than it was our resident ascii national socialist doing his thing, but the principle was the same.

    I suppose that making you log in compulsively was the point, but by then I was checking it maybe once or twice a month, so no dice. Delete account.

    And I never looked back. Don't do twitter or instawhatever or whattheapp or any of the others for the same reason.

  • If I understand it correctly, Facebook actually helped create fake white supremacist groups?

    That's great news, because it means that there are actually fewer legitimate online hate groups than the Left would have us believe. It means that Facebook is a part of an exaggeration of the racism problem.

    It means that all the despair people have been feeling over the so-called rise of online hate was caused by a computer algorithm.

    This is actually good news for once.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      so-called rise of online hate was caused by a computer algorithm.

      Simple solution. Get rid of computers.

  • Eeeek! (Score:1, Insightful)

    by PPH ( 736903 )

    There are Nahtzis everywhere!

    More like there are false flags everywhere.

  • Automated process did something automated (Score:3, Funny)

    by quall ( 1441799 ) on Thursday March 25, 2021 @05:58PM (#61199176)

    The people who complain about these things probably think that our technology is a lot smarted and more advanced than it really is.

  • Did they try ... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Thursday March 25, 2021 @06:28PM (#61199226) Journal
    Did they try listing Antifa, or QAnon or other lefty sounding fake employer names to see whether it has a bias to create white supremacists pages or it just amplifies everything from the left as well as from the rightt?
    • That is actually a good point. How much other fake content is Facebook creating?

      That does not take away from the fact that they greatly exaggerated the amount of white supremacist activity going on by doing this.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Since when has QAnon been a lefty thing?

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Southern Poverty Law Center...WTF?!?!? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by I75BJC ( 4590021 ) on Thursday March 25, 2021 @07:55PM (#61199456)
    Why would any reasonable person use the Southern Poverty Law Center as an authority or reference?

    Southern Poverty Law Center is well known as an extremely biased group.
    They consistently brand Center-Right groups as Extremists. Incorrectly.
    They have sought to limit the speech and actions of groups that do not agree with the Southern Poverty Law Center.

    Freedom is based on everyone participating.
    Freedom is good for all.

    Oppression of ideas and the people that espouse them creates hatred, oppression, tyranny, and enslavement.

    My fathers, mothers, uncles, aunts, cousins, friends, and even strangers fought for Freedom -- not the Southern Poverty Law Center.

    IMHO
    • It is worth mentioning that on more than one occasion SPLC has labeled a Muslim as a person spreading anti-Muslim hate speech.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by WallyL ( 4154209 )
        I don't know the specific situation you refer to, but there are groups within Islam that have different levels of requirements, beliefs, etc. Some of the strife in the world is between those groups of Muslims. It must suck to have people from your same broad faith trying to hurt you.
    • Because at one point they did good work, and they still trade on the reputation they later shat upon.
  • Just get it off all the platforms you can. It certainly won't make people use alternative platforms. Stop all the debate. It certainly won't let people keep their wrong opinions unchallenged. Hide the issue! When I close my eyes, the room disappears. Censorship is a guaranteed path to our utopia.

  • "One user-generated page that has been active for over a decade had 42,000 likes. Ten other pages and one group had more than 1,000 likes each"

    Should be easy enough to get a report on the real names and addresses of people who liked that and report them to the authorities. These are terrorists after all and it would be negligent to not follow up.
     

    I mean its literal nazis people. Did all these kids forget the 20th century already?

    • Well, they forgot that National Socialists are still Socialists, and the International Socialists (Communists) slaughtered far more innocent civilians than the Germans did.

      But then you forgot that in order to be a terrorist you first have to use violence against civilians in order to terrify them into political compliance. While the Democrat-founded-and-run KKK did exactly that for decades, I'm not aware of any particular instances of these turds doing so. Calling yourself a neo-Nazi may mean you are an

  • Simply shocked.

    https://www.facebook.com/Offic... [facebook.com]

  • The whole point. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Joey Vegetables ( 686525 ) on Friday March 26, 2021 @06:53AM (#61200648) Journal

    At this stage of its metastasis, the whole point of leftism is to divide and radicalize EVERYONE.

    I've had to deal with white separatists and supremacists. I know the smell (figuratively and sometimes literally). Primarily, those of the "Christian Identity" and "kinist" ilk. (Not all kinists are white supremacists, but some are.)

    Thankfully they are rare.

    What are *not* rare are ordinary people who want to live in peace, and who advocate for liberty, justice, free enterprise, and rule of law, and, for all those reasons, are falsely smeared as being "white supremacists."

    I'm one of them.

    The rest of y'all can fuck off. Including right-wing racists AND left-wing racists.

    • At this stage of its metastasis, the whole point of leftism is to divide and radicalize EVERYONE.

      At every stage of the infection, the whole point of so-called conservatism is to divide and radicalize everyone who is not wealthy.

      What are *not* rare are ordinary people who want to live in peace, and who advocate for liberty, justice, free enterprise, and rule of law, and, for all those reasons, are falsely smeared as being "white supremacists."

      Smeared? Really? You're being subjected to a campaign of disinformation in order to degrade your reputation? You whiny cuckservatives would be a lot easier to take seriously if you knew what words meant, or if you hadn't been doing the very things you're accusing others of since time immemorial.

      • Please refer to my last sentence. Thank you kindly.

        • Race is not a thing except in imaginations.

          • Race is not a thing except in imaginations.

            "The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it." -- George Orwell

      • There's a prima facie flaw in your reasoning. Conservativism cannot divide or radicalize, because those would contradict the nature of Conservativism - preserving, not changing. Liberalism is all about change, so it can radicalize and divide. Not changing is not divisive. Not changing is not radical.

        Your history is also incorrect. Did you know that the KKK, segregation and Jim Crowe were all invented and defended by the Democratic Party? Did you know those people never left the Democratic Party? H

        • Qanon is conservative radicals who have abandoned truth for fantasy. There are plenty of non-Q conservatives who say things like Twitter disabling accounts is censorship, when the first amendment only applies to government, and those people get conservatives all hot and bothered.

          Conservatives by definition is not conservatives in action, and you are being disingenuous by suggesting otherwise. In particular, conservatives seem to want to conserve the Jim Crowe era where whitey is treated better than brown pe

          • And why are you on about conservatives when the story is right wing hate groups? They clearly don't fall in to your definition of conservative.

            They fall into the actual definition of conservative, someone who wants to stop progress and keep things exactly how they are in order to maintain their position of privilege even though the world is changing and refusing to change with it will only result in disaster.

  • "a nonprofit group that seeks to deradicalize right-wing extremists"

    In terms of US politics it is not accurate to claim hate groups are "right", that is just something the left likes to do. Neither 'left' nor 'right' partisan groups claim racial ideologies of hate.

    A handful of these groups call themselves 'militias', these should not be confused with the thousands of militia groups across the country which are generally more libertarian in their politics.

    But in practice they are confused, intentionally, by
    • Oh yeah, definitely a troll. Anyone advocating individual freedom and liberty for all the people regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation rather than dividing people along those lines and scaring them into thinking they should turn liberty over to someone else for protection MUST be a troll.

      After all, the other guys are the dumb ones and as one of the smart ones you recognize THEIR plea to authority. Of course, your own autonomy gets passed over to those 'experts' (the right ones, not the crackpot

  • C.S. Lewis said something like "every age is most vigilant against that which it is in no danger of."

    Meanwhile, actual governments are implementing openly racist policies [slashdot.org].

    Under the plan, participants will be randomly selected, and white people -- who earn three times as much as blacks on average in the city -- are not eligible.

  • The Southern Poverty Law Center? Are you kidding me? All you have to do is be normal for them to call you a white supremacist. Their business model depends on finding or creating enemies. There should be a day every year when people don't use anything that was invented or made by white men. No cars, no electricity, no electronics, no toilets...
  • The quality of their character doesn't determine their right to exist or speak. These people are as irrelevant as the SPLC, and we would all benefit by simply ignoring them.

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