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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.
Facebook deletes 100 accounts, only 999,999,900 to go or thereabouts. I'll bet there is an internal rating system for this, approved fake accounts and unapproved fake accounts, you pay, you can have all the fake accounts you want, you don't pay and they might eventually kick you off.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Atheism is anti-muslim. In an Islamic state such as the UK, that is not allowed.
It is bizarre because atheism is mainstream and popular in the UK and evangelicals and religion in general have little influence. If this is Putin's mob trying to stir up enmity again, then they might have been wasting their time.
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
The groups were designed to look like sides.... both right and left.... being at odds with each other. The people behind the groups... which is what is important... were neither, they were simply trying to sow discord by controlling groups purporting to be from both sides.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
Really? Thanks for defining what I believe. I honestly didn't know I do believe that.
Atheism means exactly one thing, and one thing only: Not believing in deities. Nothing more, nothing less. Yes, that means that you are not required to "believe" in the Big Bang Theory to be an atheist (or watch the show for that matter). And it doesn't keep you from thinking the universe was created by aliens from planet Zrbit outside our universe.
In other words, just because you're atheist doesn't mean you're rational. You just have a chance to be rational.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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
Exactly. And given that the "European Research Group" is staunchly anti-European, it is probably just as likely that the "Atheists Research Centre" is an organisation for religious nutjobs.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
It's not about fake accounts. It''s about accounts of certain political persuasion. There are plenty pro-violence antifa accounts that nobody touches, from organizations like BLM.
Look at the video of MAGA children from province visiting Washington. In the beginning you see the black activists openly declaring their racist views for years in the vicinity of the white house.
Nothing happens to the account of these.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Regardless, this is about fake accounts. Nothing wrong with banning fake accounts.
Its worse than that. The banned accounts weren't simply spewing hate, after all being a hateful little twat is FREEZE PEACH.
Their big problem is that they created tamer pages to begin with then when they'd reached enough users they changed the name and ramped up the hateful content. Ultimately that was the reason they were banned.
I.E. If you created a page called "British Military Humour" (despite never having even been within 5 miles of a British military installation, making you what we call a "Walt") and started off with a few risky but relatively harmless memes... When you've got enough followers you change it to "British people for the death of all Arabs and Jews" and started flooding it with InfoWars-esque conspiracy theories, then you cross the line and get your account deleted. That is pretty much what happened here.
I do not mean to imply, good sir, that you are a bigot or a Walt. It's just an example.
Hate groups in the UK use this kind of bait and switch because we're generally not bigots. So hate groups find it hard to recruit and need to try to lure people in by pretending they aren't hate groups, then closing the trap when it's too late.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
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.