Meta shuts down Israeli network pushing AI-generated propaganda in U.S.
calcalistech.com
calcalistech.com
I don't use facebook, but is this really significant compared to the enormous number of bots that I assume exist? Certainly banning 500 bots on youtube or twitter would not be noticable.
The rest of facebook for me are a couple of closed groups that are a decent community and then just tons and tons of garbage. Uncomfortable sexualization in several categories that one has to work to get FB to stop showing you, rage bait petty fake stories reposted from "Ask Abby" or /r/aita, and AI generated bait of all types like fake (movie posters | news items | celeb nonsense).
I'm pretty sure there just isn't any content left getting posted on facebook.
My feeling is that Facebook itself is generating a lot of the content, probably also the users and groups - at least for some benign topics.
What I see on my wall is endless posts for topics I _might_ be interested in, or tangentially might. Since many of them are architectural, and the visuals are usually obviously AI generated. And yet, they appear to show a lot of engagement: tens of thousands of comments, likes, etc. From the comments on these obviously fake posts, I must assume that most of the commentors are bots or fake accounts.
It might give the appearance (to advertisers) that Facebook is relevant.
If they were 500 independent bots, sure. If they're 500 bots that are coordinated, then I wouldn't be so sure, because the logic cuts the other way.
"Certainly spending money and political capital to run just 500 bots on youtube wouldn't move the needle and would create much useless risk."
10,000 facebook accounts with 100 followers who then have 1000 followers is very different than 500 facebook accounts with 100,000 followers who then have 10M followers.
[0]https://www.npr.org/2021/05/13/996570855/disinformation-doze...
[1]https://phys.org/news/2024-05-superspreaders-responsible-lar...
(did the Allies ever leak a story that Normandy would be the target of the D-day landings, but so crudely done that it was "obviously" a plant?)
So a reverse captcha? Maybe we could append the results of a captcha to a post. Here is my theory about democracy, and here is proof that I can correctly spot bicycles.
A regex could catch a huge number of bots on twitter, but if they banned them they would have to admit that usage has gone down.
Oh look, this one is flagged too.
What's up dang?
Why not post a link about the Iranian stuff?
https://transparency.meta.com/metasecurity/threat-reporting#...
Iran: https://www.reuters.com/technology/meta-removes-iran-based-f...
China (and Russia): https://www.npr.org/2023/08/29/1196117574/meta-says-chinese-...
Why did the site decide to go with the title only mentioning Israeli network, given that the Iranian network was bigger... hmmm.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/home/0,7340,L-5246,00.htm...
I do not use Facebook, and I think this is a good thing. But what about Hamas ? I am sure Hamas also has their own bot network(s) targeting people in the US, or was that already done but there was no press about that ?
As another commenter said, the social media "battlefield" Israel is massively asymmetrical in Hamas's favour. This isn't to say Hamas is using botnets or anything like that, my view is that the anti-Israel sentiment is mostly "organic" (though it is clearly helped along by propaganda from Hamas and other anti-western groups).
As a Jew in North America I'd appreciate if Israel would not use botnets and astroturfing, because antisemitism is a big problem here in Canada, and stuff like this gives ammunition to antisemites who want to say "all claims of antisemitism are fake."
Winning an argument via lies or deception is a Pyrrhic victory; it's more important to "keep the truth on your side" and maintain your credibility and honesty.
Can you show me where you think I said that? In the context of this thread, it's clear that I'm talking about social media misinformation campaigns run by Hamas.
To state the obvious: the fact that there is a lot of anti-Israel sentiment on social media is almost certainly to Hamas' benefit, but that doesn't mean they paid for it to be there.
The Hamas brass live comfortably in Qatar, where Al Jazeera is based. They are backed by Iran, which is a huge regional power aligned with Russia, another major propaganda power who has an interest in sowing discord in the USA & the west more broadly and this topic is a very effective wedge. (In the USA it splits both republicans and democrats internally.) Ditto China who has tiktok, where they suppress topics that create discord in their society (the three Ts, in addition to other censorship they do domestically on tiktok and beyond) but have no problem with misinformation and propaganda spreading like wildfire in the West. All of these players have media and propaganda outfits above and below board that have an incentive to support Hamas. So as for the "social media propaganda war" I'd say Israel is the one outgunned.
"that doesn't mean they paid for it" I wish you had read to the second paragraph of my comment, you'd see we agree. To wit: "This isn't to say Hamas is using botnets or anything like that, my view is that the anti-Israel sentiment is mostly 'organic'"
I wish you'd read my first comment before responding to a grossly distorted version of it that was clearly a result of projection on your part. I guess I'm a bit confused by what you mean by "organic", though, because your first two paragraphs imply that the popular anti-Israel sentiment in the West is largely driven by intentional propaganda and misinformation operations, which is the opposite of what I'd call organic.
IMO, unless news media outlets like the New York Times and Wall Street Journal are bankrolled by actors such as Iran, Russia, and China, the simple facts of the war and resulting humanitarian crisis in Gaza—as credibly reported by such outlets—are more than enough to tilt popular opinion against Israel. That is what I mean by "organic".
"The communication intent is often to distract from the content of a topic"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism#:~:text=Whatabo...