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this is pretty frightening about facebook

nahmus

Refugee from syrup
Joined
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https://www.buzzfeednews.com/articl...ore-political-manipulation-whistleblower-memo

It's a long article but it's abut a memo from someone inside facebook who would find fake accounts and bot networks and try to shut them down and how little facebook supported them.

These are some of the biggest revelations in Zhang’s memo:
  • It took Facebook’s leaders nine months to act on a coordinated campaign “that used thousands of inauthentic assets to boost President Juan Orlando Hernandez of Honduras on a massive scale to mislead the Honduran people.” Two weeks after Facebook took action against the perpetrators in July, they returned, leading to a game of “whack-a-mole” between Zhang and the operatives behind the fake accounts, which are still active.
  • In Azerbaijan, Zhang discovered the ruling political party “utilized thousands of inauthentic assets... to harass the opposition en masse.” Facebook began looking into the issue a year after Zhang reported it. The investigation is ongoing.
  • Zhang and her colleagues removed “10.5 million fake reactions and fans from high-profile politicians in Brazil and the US in the 2018 elections.”
  • In February 2019, a NATO researcher informed Facebook that "he’d obtained Russian inauthentic activity on a high-profile U.S. political figure that we didn’t catch." Zhang removed the activity, “dousing the immediate fire,” she wrote.
  • In Ukraine, Zhang “found inauthentic scripted activity” supporting both former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, a pro–European Union politician and former presidential candidate, as well as Volodymyr Groysman, a former prime minister and ally of former president Petro Poroshenko. “Volodymyr Zelensky and his faction was the only major group not affected,” Zhang said of the current Ukrainian prime minister.
  • Zhang discovered inauthentic activity — a Facebook term for engagement from bot accounts and coordinated manual accounts— in Bolivia and Ecuador but chose “not to prioritize it,” due to her workload. The amount of power she had as a mid-level employee to make decisions about a country’s political outcomes took a toll on her health.
  • After becoming aware of coordinated manipulation on the Spanish Health Ministry’s Facebook page during the COVID-19 pandemic, Zhang helped find and remove 672,000 fake accounts “acting on similar targets globally” including in the US.
  • In India, she worked to remove “a politically-sophisticated network of more than a thousand actors working to influence" the local elections taking place in Delhi in February. Facebook never publicly disclosed this network or that it had taken it down.
 
I fell for a FB add for Reef sandals. Never did get the sandals, but got hit with a bunch of false charges. MC reversed all the charges, so it didn't cost me anything, but it was a PITA to notify the autocharge accounts. Zero fucks were given by FB.
 
Thats the same shit they do in the US with our politics. Your shocked for some reason?

Fuck FB, IG and all that other nonsense. With all the info out there like you posted above, why the fuck do people have accounts with them? I'll never understand this...
 
What was shocking to me what that a "mid level" person had so much power and no support or overview. She looked into what she thought in her opinion were the most damaging instances. In reading the article she would decide to maybe look at something later and then see unrest in that area and wonder if it was her fault or if she could have prevented somethnig. She said that the pressure really got to her. I would have thought that a team like that would have upper management access all the time.
 
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CCP Shut it down. Report for a blood test. :laughing: We know what's best. Gather, drive, pen the sheep. The chip is in your phone.

Somebody set us up a bomb.

All your Base are belong to us :eek:
 
Thats the same shit they do in the US with our politics. Your shocked for some reason?

Fuck FB, IG and all that other nonsense. With all the info out there like you posted above, why the fuck do people have accounts with them? I'll never understand this...

Anyone that believes the shit they read on social media is pretty fucktarded in the first place.

I use bookface for my hobby and that's it. I don't follow anyone or any groups that do anything outside of that hobby so I don't get inundated with any political bullshit and I sure as fuck don't post personal shit either.
 
Deleted what little information I had on there and logged off several years ago

Mrs still uses it to keep in touch with some family members
 
I had friends get Temporary bans for posting 9/11 memorial stuff. Lost any little respect for FB after I saw that.
 
Never understood how that works, thought facepage was person to person telling stupid shit about their day. How would bots affect anything? Do people “friend” bots they don’t know?
 
You think that's frightening watch this on netflix.



Beat me to it.

We watched it over the weekend. “If you’re not paying for the product, you are the product”. I thought it was interesting. I certainly wasn’t shocked by what was shared.
 
Never understood how that works, thought facepage was person to person telling stupid shit about their day. How would bots affect anything? Do people “friend” bots they don’t know?

You'ld be amazed. People you don't even now try to friend you or, Comment on a public article, that gets you exposed and the bots come freinding. Usually use some hot half naked chicks photos as bait.
 
The Social Dilemma on Netflix was very eye-opening. I had deactivated FB in April due to the toxic politics 24/7 from "friends", but that documentary really shed light on the immense power social media has not just on our attention but also on public discourse. In essence, they control what becomes "viral" based on "recommended" topics. They more or less gather kindling (like-minded user profiles) and pour gasoline all over them. Luckily as an IRL asshole I don't have many people that care about what I'm up to, nor I them, but I will definitely be forbidding social media for my kids entirely.

That acting with the little girl being made fun of was rough to watch. It sucks being a kid these days, they have to be "on" 24/7. At least when I was done with school, I was done. There is the clear "plus" of recommended content, in that I'll watch a Jeepin video on Youtube if it looks good enough, without slogging through the infinite abyss of content they have, but I really, really enjoyed that documentary.
 
I liked how at the end of the doc it talked about disinformation. Makes me understand a bit better as to why we are in such a “us vs them” political state right now.
 
Anyone that believes the shit they read on social media is pretty fucktarded in the first place.

I use bookface for my hobby and that's it. I don't follow anyone or any groups that do anything outside of that hobby so I don't get inundated with any political bullshit and I sure as fuck don't post personal shit either.


ah yes, the " I'm on Facebook just because of ____" excuse line. I've seen it a thousand times if I've seen it once.

Regardless, if you're on facebook, they have all your shit.
 
ah yes, the " I'm on Facebook just because of ____" excuse line. I've seen it a thousand times if I've seen it once.

Regardless, if you're on facebook, they have all your shit.

They have my fake name and fake email for facebook?

Those sumbitches! Now I'm really mad! :mad3:
 
You think that's frightening watch this on netflix.



Just watched that last night and was going to post it today. Good watch. Same shit I've been saying about those companies for years, just more in depth and from actual former employees at high levels and the same info about their disinformation that I've been telling people is at the core of the divide we find our country in now.
 
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. I had deactivated FB in April due to the toxic politics 24/7.
I did the same but reactivated ( I split my 1st name as first and last) as my family are all states apart. I follow a few Sane political dudes I like and thats it. No friends/old friends. Its better as for the most part our politics are the same.
 
ah yes, the " I'm on Facebook just because of ____" excuse line. I've seen it a thousand times if I've seen it once.

Regardless, if you're on facebook, they have all your shit.

And then? We are talking about how bookface is being used to sway votes. They aren't swaying my vote because I don't engage in anything there associated with politics. Now if you want to talk about swaying me about rc cars then I'm in trouble for sure. :laughing:
 
They have my fake name and fake email for facebook?

Those sumbitches! Now I'm really mad! :mad3:


something tells me they have more than that.


i just think its funny people who say Facebook is bad and then still use it. they log your clicks, and show you adds, and log you into their system as a user. Fake name or not, they are still profiting from you.
 
ah yes, the " I'm on Facebook just because of ____" excuse line. I've seen it a thousand times if I've seen it once.

Regardless, if you're on facebook, they have all your shit.

Facebook can have my shit, it's not that impressive. I think the biggest challenge is not letting whatever you see on there push your emotional buttons and not treating things you read on Facebook as facts. Also remember that confirmation bias is one of those emotional buttons. That is easier said than done of course, since facebook is pretty good at throwing things at you that you care about, but I found that as long as I'm only friends with people actually know in real life and don't add your self to silly groups you don't care about, then you only have to worry about a few dumbass friends sharing dumbass stuff.
 
Facebook can have my shit, it's not that impressive. I think the biggest challenge is not letting whatever you see on there push your emotional buttons and not treating things you read on Facebook as facts. Also remember that confirmation bias is one of those emotional buttons. That is easier said than done of course, since facebook is pretty good at throwing things at you that you care about, but I found that as long as I'm only friends with people actually know in real life and don't add your self to silly groups you don't care about, then you only have to worry about a few dumbass friends sharing dumbass stuff.

Facebook is still using you. they are still profiting from you. you still drive ad traffic and consume, knowingly or unknowingly.

Being on facebook adds to their bottom line. its that simple. It doesnt matter what or how many excuses you make.
 
I interviewed at Facebook recently, let's just say the culture wasn't a good fit
 
Facebook is still using you. they are still profiting from you. you still drive ad traffic and consume, knowingly or unknowingly.

Being on facebook adds to their bottom line. its that simple. It doesnt matter what or how many excuses you make.

And then? I don't give half a limp dick fuck if they profit off of me. They aren't swaying my vote, my ideals of anything else for me.
 
Facebook is still using you. they are still profiting from you. you still drive ad traffic and consume, knowingly or unknowingly.

Being on facebook adds to their bottom line. its that simple. It doesnt matter what or how many excuses you make.

I'm not trying to run them out of business. I'm good with trading information they get from my profile for the ability to connect with certain friends who use facebook almost exclusively.

One thing I won't do is install either the messenger app or the facebook app on my phone. I really hated the amount of battery drain I would experience and it made it painfully obvious how much facebook was actively monitoring in the background(it was most likely using my phone's gps constantly among other things). Instead I use Metal to access facebook with my android phone: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nam.fbwrapper&hl=en_US
 
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