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Facebook Takes Down Fake Account Network Used To Spread Hate In UK (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Facebook has removed a network of more than 100 accounts and pages for "coordinated inauthentic behavior" on its social networks -- the first time it has done so for UK-based operations seeking to influence British citizens. The operation was spread over Facebook and Instagram and used a network of fake accounts to pose as both far-right activists and their opponents. It ran pages and groups whose names frequently changed in order to drum up more followers and operated fake accounts to engage in hate speech and spread divisive comments on both sides of UK political debate, Facebook says.
The pages, with names like "Anti Far Right Extremists", "Atheists Research Centre", and "Politicalized", attracted about 175,000 followers on Facebook, and a further 4,500 on Instagram, according to the company's head of cybersecurity policy, Nathaniel Gleicher. The pages shared content from mainstream news sources, such as the BBC and the New York Times, but also shared original content, even including administrators actively engaging in debate with users. "We are constantly working to detect and stop this type of activity because we don't want our services to be used to manipulate people," Gleicher said. "We're taking down these pages and accounts based on their behavior, not the content they posted. In each of these cases, the people behind this activity coordinated with one another and used fake accounts to misrepresent themselves, and that was the basis for our action.
The pages, with names like "Anti Far Right Extremists", "Atheists Research Centre", and "Politicalized", attracted about 175,000 followers on Facebook, and a further 4,500 on Instagram, according to the company's head of cybersecurity policy, Nathaniel Gleicher. The pages shared content from mainstream news sources, such as the BBC and the New York Times, but also shared original content, even including administrators actively engaging in debate with users. "We are constantly working to detect and stop this type of activity because we don't want our services to be used to manipulate people," Gleicher said. "We're taking down these pages and accounts based on their behavior, not the content they posted. In each of these cases, the people behind this activity coordinated with one another and used fake accounts to misrepresent themselves, and that was the basis for our action.
For $50 a month, you can also have this trick
"we don't want our services to be used to manipulate people"
Facebook prefers to keep that power to themselves.
"We're taking down these pages and accounts based on their behavior, not the content they posted."
90% of the article is focused on the message of 'spreading hate', even though Facebook apparently doesn't care about the content they posted. This still doesn't explain the countless other political voices that DO get blocked and censored despite not breaking any technical rules.
PS: Yes, Liberals. We all know already that Facebook is a private company that has the legal right to do what they want. Of course that right only applies to companies that Liberals like, and not cake designers. It's funny how you can make any NPC Socialist suddenly LOVE their giant trillion dollar corrupt corporations, just so long as they're censoring people Liberals don't like.
What is a "fake" accunt anyway? At least in the EU, Facebook has got no formal right to ask you, citizen, for your papers when you create an account, which makes pretty much all their accounts from EU "fake".
There are no transparent, open and reasonable criteria from Facebook on what various transgressions constitute "policy violation", they are all arbitrary and whimsical and depend heavily on third party reporting.
There were people I know who valued the service and (the sorry fucks) built a life or a business around it have been fucked beyond measure by hateful and false reporting, which lead to disabled and closed accounts.
Playing the facebook game is like playing with that nuclear war computer - there is no way to win.
The only way to win is to shun the Zucker.
And I am uncomfortable to say it out loud, but hosts file works well enough for that, no even need for apks to edit it.
Use it :)
Atheists acknowledge the reality that there is not, and never has been, any evidence for any "god/goddess/gods" throughout the entire history of humanity, and refuse to live in a delusion/fantasy where a "god/goddess/gods" is considered "real" despite that complete lack of evidence.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
Why does Facebook get blamed
Dunno, really. Could it be because they are a bunch of sleazy fucktards, who collect information that the Stazi would not without telling the users what exactly they have on them? Or because they hire experts to help them play the human psychology so that using FB becomes addictive? Or because they habitually lie about what they do with the collected information? Could it be because they keep shadow profiles for people who are not interested in their services? Perhaps because they pay the likes of Samsung to get their spyware preinstalled on phones in unremovable ways?
Who knows... It is hard to imagine why people don't like them.
Why would they bother? It's their platform, they can ban anyone they like for any or no reason. Generic "TOS violation" has been a thing forever.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Skeptics are now more often cast as "far right".
Call out Christian BS 15 years ago? Cool dude.
Call out Muslim BS now? FAR RIGHT RACIST BIGOT.
Don't believe three-letter government agencies 15 years ago? Smart independent thinking dude.
Don't believe three-letter government agencies now? FAR RIGHT RUSSIAN BOT.
Resisting the constant shifting of definitions 15 years ago? Haha George Carlin is pretty badass.
Resisting the constant shifting of definitions now? YOU ARE BAD AND AN ASS AND FAR RIGHT.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Nope, not believing in a god is as rational as not believing in Santa Clause or the Flying Spaghetti Monster or a Teapot Orbiting between Jupiter and Mars.
If you believe in a god and claim it is "rational" because "well we don't know it ISN'T real!", then you have to really believe in all the other gods too, and the FSM, monsters under the bed, etc.
Note that if you claim that god is real, then you are lying, since Shiva is god, according to the believers of Shiva. If you don't accept that Shiva is real, then you should not believe YOUR god is real either. Both have 100% identically valid "evidences", so if you believe in one god, you HAVE to believe in them all.
Or accept YOUR belief in YOUR god is irrational.
Why is it so hard for you theist idiots to accept your belief is irrational? We can't refute your belief, but we CAN refute your logic for your believe BECAUSE you claim your belief is rational. Stop claiming it is rational and suddenly we don't have a leg to stand on to change your belief.
Of course you have no basis to convert anyone, so you can't bother others over your belief, but which is more important to you: your god or annoying the shit out of other people?
Not believing something is basically the default position for any rational being. When you're trying to find out what is and what is not, there are essentially two points where you can start. Either by requiring positive proof, i.e. assuming nothing is until its existence is proven, or by requiring negative proof, i.e. assuming everything is until clearly shown to be not. Now, the latter is not only fairly impossible to do, it's also pretty inconvenient. Especially for those who want to believe. Because if we assume everything is until falsified, we'll have to assume that all gods exist, and it's on you now to show that yours is the only "true" one.
Religions are usually defined as mutually exclusive, i.e. you believe in one you cannot believe in another, or at the very least, that the god(s) of one religion get really angry if you believe in other god(s). Which in turn also make it the most sensible position to not believe in any until shown which one is the correct one because it's the least effort position, since worshiping all of them is not only impossible due to time constraints, some creeds have quite conflicting tenets, for example it's really hard to align the ideals of Sikhism with the demands that Xipe Totec puts on his followers.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.