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Facebook Pledges To Crack Down on Government-led Misinformation Campaigns (theverge.com)
Facebook is pressing its enforcement against what it calls "information operations" -- bad actors who use the platform to spread fake news and false propaganda. From a report: The company, which published a report on the subject today, defines these operations as government-led campaigns -- or those from organized "non-state actors" -- to promote lies, sow confusion and chaos among opposing political groups, and destabilize movements in other countries. The goal of these operations, the report says, is to manipulate public opinion and serve geopolitical ends. The actions go beyond the posting of fake news stories. The 13-page report specifies that fake news can be motivated by a number of incentives, but that it becomes part of a larger information operation when its coupled with other tactics and end goals. Facebook says these include friend requests sent under false names to glean more information about the personal networks of spying targets and hacking targets, the boosting of false or misleading stories through mass "liking" campaigns, and the creation propaganda groups. The company defines these actions as "targeted data collection," "false amplification," and "content creation." Facebook plans to target these accounts by monitoring for suspicious activity, like bursts of automated actions on the site, to enact mass banning of accounts.
Pretty sure the parent was saying Facebook would ignore the lies of Democrats as this whole "fake news" thing is mainly a left-wing censorship campaign.
I'm also pretty sure you are correct about his intentions, but considering that is an absurd opinion I gave him the benefit of the doubt.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
The title is misleading. They are actually pledging to crack down on Government-led INFORMATION campaigns.
Their report reads:
One aspect of this included malicious actors leveraging conventional and social media to share information stolen from other sources, such as email accounts, with the intent of harming the reputation of specific political targets. These incidents employed a relatively straightforward yet deliberate series of actions:
Private and/or proprietary information was accessed and stolen from systems and services (outside of Facebook);
Dedicated sites hosting this data were registered;
Fake personas were created on Facebook and elsewhere to point to and amplify awareness of this data;
Social media accounts and pages were created to amplify news accounts of and direct people to the stolen data.
From there, organic proliferation of the messaging and data through authentic peer groups and networks was inevitable.
They are clearly talking about the Podesta and Clinton emails. The truth was spread and they don't want it to happen again.