Meta Claims US Military Linked to Online Propaganda Campaign (bbc.com) 74
From the BBC:
"Individuals associated with the U.S. military" are linked to an online propaganda campaign, Meta's latest adversarial-threat report says....
On Facebook, 39 accounts, 16 pages, and two groups were removed, as well as 26 accounts on Instagram, for violating the platforms' policy against "coordinated inauthentic behaviour". "This network originated in the United States," Meta wrote. It focused on countries including Afghanistan, Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Somalia, Syria, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Yemen — and mirrored tactics commonly used in propaganda campaigns against the West...
Some of those supporting the U.S. had posed as independent media outlets and some had tried to pass off content from legitimate outlets, such as BBC News Russian, as their own. The operation ran across many internet services, including Twitter, YouTube, Telegram, VKontakte and Odnoklassniki, according to Meta. "Although the people behind this operation attempted to conceal their identities and coordination, our investigation found links to individuals associated with the US military," its report says.
The article adds that experts believe the campaign "was largely ineffective."
On Facebook, 39 accounts, 16 pages, and two groups were removed, as well as 26 accounts on Instagram, for violating the platforms' policy against "coordinated inauthentic behaviour". "This network originated in the United States," Meta wrote. It focused on countries including Afghanistan, Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Somalia, Syria, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Yemen — and mirrored tactics commonly used in propaganda campaigns against the West...
Some of those supporting the U.S. had posed as independent media outlets and some had tried to pass off content from legitimate outlets, such as BBC News Russian, as their own. The operation ran across many internet services, including Twitter, YouTube, Telegram, VKontakte and Odnoklassniki, according to Meta. "Although the people behind this operation attempted to conceal their identities and coordination, our investigation found links to individuals associated with the US military," its report says.
The article adds that experts believe the campaign "was largely ineffective."
Would be interesting to see what content (Score:3)
I have no problem if the military is just reposting news, even if they are selective about just the news that they want people to see.
What I hate is the sites spreading fake news.
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most of what people call "fake news" is just what you described before that: technically true, but in a way that's intended to distract or inflame opinion.
then there's the real news (or even facts or scientific theories!) that people just don't like, that's also called fake news.
then there are actual lies, which occur in both "real" and "fake" news.
Re:Would be interesting to see what content (Score:4, Interesting)
It's often not even technically true. It's spin. Like "well, masks only prevent 80% of disease spreading" becoming "masks don't stop disease".
That's not lying by omission, that's lying.
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That is an example of "technically true." 80% != 100%, so "masks don't stop disease" is technically true.
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Re: Would be interesting to see what content (Score:2)
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It's not sophistry at all. The difference is that you defined "stopping disease" as "stopping the spread of a disease in a population, eventually" and the example in the GP defines it as "stopping the spread of disease between individuals." Both are perfectly reasonable definitions.
In fact, your argument is much closer to sophistry because "80%" or even "everybody wearing masks" isn't enough to stop many diseases in either sense of "stop."
It is absolutely a "technically correct" argument, which means it is
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So you'd agree that saying you're potentially a pedo is true? I mean, I don't have conclusive evidence that you're not, after all.
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the "news" here is that the us military intelligence engages in this crap and ... pathetically sucks at it. they should hire professionals, there's no shortage of them.
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Although the people behind this operation attempted to conceal their identities and coordination, our investigation found links to individuals associated with the US military
The Meta report says "The US network — linked to individuals associated with the US military — operated across many internet services" but the BBC report says "However, the researchers were clear that even though the companies named these countries, it did not prove they were behind the campaign. 'We do not have the necessary information to attribute this activity to a single country or organisation,' the Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO) told the BBC."
So what does "individuals associated wit
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What I hate is the sites spreading fake news.
Then you must be absolutely against the Fox tabloid and their deliberate spreading of fake "news".
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That is part of the fake news. There are more than two sides.
Two sides (Score:1)
In my view, there are two sides only: you are either an ideological egalitarian, or not. The problem is that most of one side is actually working for the other side, and that other side is heavily corrupted by various special interest groups and industries. Non-egalitarian philosophies however are a big tent but they tend to be fit on a spectrum from libertarian through monarchist.
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I think you've got that a little mixed. Those who are 'working for the other side' are using superficial claims of egalitarianism to sell authoritarianism. How does one overcome those pesky people trying to get 'more' than the rest without having the authority to quash their efforts or universally nerfing their entire class to remove that path as an option? But if one shifts the authority and power to the state to do such a thing there is simply no getting around the fact that the state is really nothing bu
Anarchy = totalitarianism (in time) (Score:1)
I am not an egalitarian in any form (this is what being a Right-winger means, even if your average Republican is ignorant of this fact, among others). I think it is a distraction from the real question. We may fear power, but it is always going to exist as long as we have permanent civilization. Therefore, we need power systems that do not create problems that they "have" to manage and therefore arrogate more power and wealth to themselves.
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Egalitarian means everyone has the same rights, privileges, etc. Republicans might be ignorant of what right wing means but right wing means liberal, not as in Liberals but REAL liberalism, aka individual freedom. The most egalitarian system is anarchy because there is no state imposed imbalance of rights and privileges. You are right, this is unstable but what it collapses into is not what it is therefore anarchy is not totalitarianism.
The next runner up is libertarianism a stable government with little do
The arc of history (Score:1)
The time question to me is essential. We know for example that democracies tend to blow up after 225-240 years. These always lead to self-interested dictatorship a.k.a. tyranny. Anarchist societies decay into totalitarianism as well, and from the American experience, it seems that libertarian societies go far-Left over time because they provide prosperity to everyone, even edgy basement neckbeards with copies of Das Kapital that are smeared with Suspicious Stains.
However, I disagree on the nature of the Rig
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"However, I disagree on the nature of the Right. The Right means order outside of the individual; it is expressly not egalitarian."
Then we have a semantics debate. I would consider that to be the definition of the left. The left promotes disarming the people and seizing control of all forms of power reserving it to one or a small number of individuals making dubious claims of it being for social good. The right promotes distributing authority and putting those with power in conflict and contention so that i
There's a lot here (Score:1)
That may be the American Right, which is more libertarian than conservative per se.
The basis of that social good is equality, in their view, and this allows them to justify all sorts of guillo
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"That may be the American Right, which is more libertarian than conservative per se."
Fair enough.
"* Democracy = power egalitarianism
* Socialism = economic egalitarianism
* Feminism = sexual egalitarianism
* Diversity = genetic egalitarianism"
I'd disagree with those notions on all counts. Social collectives exist to transfer the power of X population to Y individuals where Y is less than X. Therefore they are not egalitarian. These movements are all sorts of social collective. The type of power is really irrel
Let me attempt to translate (Score:1)
I like this, so let us work with it (and modify "power" to "power, wealth, and status" since money talks and people listen). In egalitarianism:
* X = organic society
* Y = those who are below the "equal" line
In other words, tax everyone so you can give money, power, and status to those who are below the poverty line.
Or at least, to enslave the rightmost quadrant of th
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Wait, Fox News is supposed to be a real news outlet? I had them pegged at the same level as the Weekly World News, like some sort of satire pretending to be news.
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...some sort of satire pretending to be news.
That's the argument they use in court whenever they have to, and the courts agree.
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Would be interesting to see what content was in these. Were they indeed just passing along news, or were they making fake shit up?
Or, since Hype and Bullshit are both Directors in Sales & Marketing these days, was this in fact nothing more than slow news day and little more than a side effect of (allegedly) ~2 billion (mostly alive, and with 15% less bot-fat than the competitor) humans participating on the worlds largest social media platform.
What I hate is the sites spreading fake news.
Agreed. Including social media platforms desperately trying to remain relevant, with Sales & Marketing driven by Hype and Bullshit.
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Or it could have been a way to send msgs to assets deep in enemy areas.
WW2 had the UK's radio services sending msgs to assets in France, etc, by saying specific words or sequences, etc during the broadcast,
Re: Would be interesting to see what content (Score:1)
You don't need to form a whole campaign of misinformation to do that. Actually, that would be quite clumsy when you can use specific words without exposing so much surface area.
Not buying this one.
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Posting true news can do immerse damage.
Imagine your news feed had stories every day and immigrants arriving illegally. Thousands of them. Presented as a report on an on-going threat, as if they were covering a warzone.
It's true, those people really are arriving. But the fact that they arrived illegally is your elected representatives' political choice. The dramatic coverage is a choice. Reminding you of it every day is a choice. And are thousands really big numbers? Maybe it's actually fewer thousands this
Meta/Facebook credibility: 0 (Score:1)
Re: Meta/Facebook credibility: 0 (Score:1)
near impossible: he has no international support (the opossite of Mr. da Silva)
:P])
And about next elections, the legal system here will not let him do something like Donald Trump is doing in US (the future of him here possibly will be like Jeanine Añes in Bolivia [that are behind bars now
Re: Meta/Facebook credibility: 0 (Score:1)
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Yes, you pretty much understood what he tried to say. Thank you for pointing it out.
Pot calling kettle black (Score:1)
Obviously!
Somewhat slanted headline... (Score:5, Interesting)
The BBC mentions that they took down 39 "inauthentic" Facebook accounts originated in the United States, but left out that the same operation took down twice as many Facebook accounts originating in China... and 1,633 accounts originating in Russia.
Seems the BBC headline wants to focus on small numbers, not the big one.
(*numbers from the second link in the summary, https://about.fb.com/news/2022... [fb.com] )
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The difference is that China doesn't pretend to be doing otherwise while lecturing the rest of the world about their moral superiority.
Your leader's views are laughable to many [washingtonpost.com].
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Wow. Looked over that WaPo article and neither 'your leader' nor his 'views' are mentioned in it anywhere.
Both countries have had shit on their shoes for a long time. And their immature pissing contest is dangerous, stupid, and invites us all to tune both of them out.
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Re: Somewhat slanted headline... (Score:1)
I suspect the difference is that the US is simply better at hiding their propaganda on English language forums as they have native level language skills and a perfect understanding of the culture.
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More importantly, the western world claims moral superiority and still runs comparable propaganda.
I don't expect any different from Russia and China, but we are supposed to be the good guys? Then why are we not more honest?
Two orders of magnitude [Re:Somewhat slanted h...] (Score:2)
More importantly, the western world claims moral superiority and still runs comparable propaganda.
If by "comparable" you mean "smaller by two orders of magnitude," yes.
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The difference is that China doesn't pretend to be doing otherwise while lecturing the rest of the world about their moral superiority.
China is a duplicitous garbage state who hate their people so much they use them as slaves to fuel the top losers in the "society". Cry harder.
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Only 1633?
Did Russia really have to send its propaganda brigade to the frontlines already? That's pitifully few.
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The BBC mentions that they took down 39 "inauthentic" Facebook accounts originated in the United States, but left out that the same operation took down twice as many Facebook accounts originating in China... and 1,633 accounts originating in Russia.
Seems the BBC headline wants to focus on small numbers, not the big one.
(*numbers from the second link in the summary, https://about.fb.com/news/2022... [fb.com] )
Well the fact that Russia has a massive online propaganda operation directed at the west based on fake social media profiles isn't news. The fact the US military does is news. They were obviously doing some degree of propaganda but the fake social media is newsworthy and probably counterproductive since it does undercut US messaging generally. As your post makes clear "they do it, we don't" is much simpler messaging than "we both do it, but they do it way more".
The reporting on the content is somewhat inter
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They're only "promoting human rights" where it's useful to them, such as Iran. Doubt they had much to say against Saudi Arabian actions in Yemen or Israel in Palestinian territories.
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It's trendy and cool to be anti American, despite (as you point out) clear evidence that the worst actors are elsewhere.
This is kind of like black lives matter angrily protesting a double handful of people killed by the police and ignoring the hundreds and hundreds of black men being killed by each other. Both are objectively terrible, but if it's the lives that REALLY DO matter, where are your efforts going to provide the most benefit?
#followthenumbers
Give me a break (Score:3, Insightful)
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I know, paying for high-quality infor
What does that mean? (Score:3)
watering hole (Score:2)
Sounds like a watering hole. Maybe you email someone a link to your news site and when they visit your site they are served a little something extra, perhaps not so different than the persistent tracking most news web sites use, perhaps a lot different.
Meta knew they were spies because they are spies (Score:2)
The article said ""Although the people behind this operation attempted to conceal their identities and coordination, our investigation found links to individuals associated with the US military," its report says."
In other words, Meta is so good at spying on people, they can catch professional spies even when they try to conceal who they are.
My problem is not with the US employing these people, every country does. Intstead it is with Meta having the power to discover their real identity.
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If that is any indicator, those tactics commonly used in propaganda campaigns against the West are so lowbrow that only really dumb people fall for it, while it's quite overt to most other people.
That sets the bar so low that it doesn't really say much about Meta's capabilities there.
Though of course assuming that the operatives did do their
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guessing Oracle (Score:2)
"The suit, which was filed Friday as a 66-page complaint in the Northern District of California, alleges the tech giant’s “worldwide surveillance machine” has amassed detailed dossiers on some five billion people, accusing the company and its adtech and advertising subsidiaries of violating the privacy of the majority of the people on Earth."
https://yro.slashdot.org/story... [slashdot.org]
Of course they are (Score:2)
So what? (Score:1)
Nothing to see here, folks, move along..
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some of them threaten the Free World with their expansionism.
Oh, good grief. Best hide under your bed, the bad guys are going to get you!
Being frightened of fantasies must be very exhausting, you should go take a nap.
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If it were up to me (Score:2)
But that has a bit too much sincerity and ethical behavior for our government, doesn't it?
Claiming moral superiority is one thing. Actually being morally superior is a powerful "propaganda" advantage. If people can see that you're full of shit, that will make them hate you more.
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If anyone gets fired it will be because they were so sloppy they got caught. They've been doing this since the days of dial-up BBSs, I'm not sure why this is news unless that maybe Meta got caught between two feuding agencies who exposed some of each other's people.
Meta's selective account removal (Score:2)
The US military's largely ineffectual propaganda campaign resulted in accounts being removed by Meta. However, the hugely effective political propaganda campaigns which often directly and intentionally use false information are publicly and intentionally protected.
Meta and Facebook should get no applause for this and should be despised not just for the bias in treating accounts but the intentional corporate strategy to maximize profits even if it means intentionally driving the increasing politicization of
BBC should know Propaganda (Score:2)
As purveyors of the finest propaganda and gaslighting in the world.
#BBC , the nations LEAST trusted news service & broadcaster.
* It admitted it would not expose the prime ministers lies "for fear of undermining public faith in democracy."
* guilty of placing actors to pose as members of the public on so-called "public debate" programs falsifying public opinion to support their narrative
* instrumental in the Austerity lie and the drip feed campaign buttering up the public to accept it, therefore facilitat
Is that you, POTUS? (Score:1)
They're letting Trump do it freely and openly because he's running, why not the military too? Surely someone there is a politician.
It's definitely also on YouTube (Score:1)
I have noticed since the war in Ukraine began there are several channels on YouTube that publish high quality videos, daily, the footage almost never related to the speech directly (it also says so in the bottom of the videos) but it clearly designed to create a kind of 'visual narrative'. Many times you would ask yourself if this is armature how would they get this kind of footage that shows in many cases US bases, training footage of Ukrainian soldiers, even delivery of US weapons to Ukraine - something