Facebook Shuts Down New Accounts From Iran and Russia Spreading Disinformation (thedailybeast.com) 113
Facebook on Monday removed nearly 200 newly discovered fake accounts linked separately to Iran and to Russia's Internet Research Agency. The takedowns demonstrate that foreign influence operations are already targeting the 2020 election, but provide evidence that Russia's notorious troll farm is struggling to regain anything close to the influence in held in 2016. The Daily Beast reports: The new wave of takedowns targeted separate networks of deceptive accounts created by Iran and Russia, including dozens of fake Facebook organization pages. In a press call, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said the takedowns show the company has come far since getting caught flat-footed in 2016. "The fact that we've identified them proactively should provide some confidence that our systems here are working," Zuckerberg said. The Russian accounts were far more focused on U.S. domestic issues, but in terms of sheer numbers and longevity, the Iranian effort outstripped Russia. The Iranian accounts included 21 Instagram accounts and 135 fake Facebook accounts propping up 26 phony organization pages and four Facebook groups. More than 90 of the accounts were primarily focused on U.S. readers, with the others mostly targeting Latin America. The accounts largely pushed links to Iranian propaganda on state-run news outlets, according to Facebook.
As with past takedowns, the company's announcement only identified a handful of the Iranian personas. Of those, though, one stands out as eerily reminiscent of Russia's 2016 efforts -- a Facebook page called "BLMnews" that purported to be a news site covering the Black Lives Matters movement. The page had a meager 45 followers, and, according to Facebook, was devoted to driving traffic to an associated website that's been operating since August 2016, according to Internet registration records. Russia's Internet Research Agency ran similar sites and Facebook pages during and after the 2016 election season, some with sizable followings. But so far the Saint Petersburg troll farm appears to have a long way to go. Of the 50 accounts banned by Facebook on Monday, all but one were on Instagram alone, with no Facebook presence at all. The Russian operation appears to be in the early stages, Facebook said. "They're still trying to build their audience, and they put significant operation security into concealing who they were," said company cybersecurity chief Nathaniel Gleicher in Monday's press call.
As with past takedowns, the company's announcement only identified a handful of the Iranian personas. Of those, though, one stands out as eerily reminiscent of Russia's 2016 efforts -- a Facebook page called "BLMnews" that purported to be a news site covering the Black Lives Matters movement. The page had a meager 45 followers, and, according to Facebook, was devoted to driving traffic to an associated website that's been operating since August 2016, according to Internet registration records. Russia's Internet Research Agency ran similar sites and Facebook pages during and after the 2016 election season, some with sizable followings. But so far the Saint Petersburg troll farm appears to have a long way to go. Of the 50 accounts banned by Facebook on Monday, all but one were on Instagram alone, with no Facebook presence at all. The Russian operation appears to be in the early stages, Facebook said. "They're still trying to build their audience, and they put significant operation security into concealing who they were," said company cybersecurity chief Nathaniel Gleicher in Monday's press call.
This is a violation of... (Score:5, Funny)
...Iran and Russia's constitutional rights!!!
Facebook shuts down (Score:2)
Just leave it at 3 words.
Let it die already.
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So to be clear (Score:5, Insightful)
It's only Unite States politicians who can post misinformation on Facebook. Got it.
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Talk about bigotry in service to liars!
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Towards the end Snowden cites a study by leftists who checked the history of election meddling between Russia and US. I don't remember the numbers exactly but it was something like 34:81 Russia:USA, going back decades. Neither is this game something new nor is Russia the largest culprit.
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But, but, but, they are RUSSIANS and Russians are so much smarter than Americans
If they ever figure out how to use Tor then democracy is over - Facebook will never find them!
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PS you can expect the US deep state and the US shadow government to run a pretend Russian social media attack to justify Russiagate
Its already happened, except it wasnt the U.S. deep state, it was the Democrat propaganda outfit "New Knowledge", which was faking Russian bots on places like Facebook.
They have since been banned from Facebook/etc, because its the truth.
Clickbait farms are not "russian meddling", but New Knowledge was a Democrat operation pretending to be "russian meddlers."
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Re: So to be clear (Score:2)
Latin Americans and BLM news (Score:1)
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I'll bet they don't even speak Latin.
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So, Spanish and Portuguese has as much relation to Latin as you do to your great grandfather. So, do Latin Americans speak Latin??? Well, kinda.
I voted for Trump... (Score:1, Funny)
...because some fake Facebook profile told me to. Man, I sure am embarrassed about that! If that profile didn't exist I would have voted for the other guy.
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That could have been the guys name. Not sure. The Russians made me forget what it was. They sure are clever, those Russians!
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Apparently only Russian advertising works. I guess we should start hiring Russian ad agencies. They sure are clever! They managed to win an entire Presidential Election even though no one really wanted to vote for Trump.
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Right, b/c that's what every says happened, not just you! Disinformation is great, we need more of it, not less. No one know what the truth is anyway! The tide goes in, the tide goes out, no one knows why!
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Wrong. The Russians know why. Maybe they even control the tide. Hopefully we can get rid of them so we can go back to electing the right people again.
HAARP controls the weather, not RUSSIA! (Score:1)
you know nothing!
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Now it all makes sense. We weren't on the moon! The Russians control the moon! And Creedence Clearwater Revival knew it back even in 1969 (a year that should make anyone suspicious) and made a song about it but had to disguise it, but if you listen closely you will hear that they sing that there's a RED moon rising!
Folks, let's create our own conspiracy theory. I mean, everyone has one today, it's what the cool kids do it seems.
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The tide goes in, the tide goes out, no one knows why!
Gravity... *sigh* Are the schools that bad?
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They are able to be very effective for much lower cost because they are not bound by the same laws that real election campaigns are. No need to state who paid for the ad, or even to pay for it - just create a bunch of fake accounts and start spewing memes.
If a genuine campaign tried it and was caught it would be a crime.
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They are able to be very effective for much lower cost because they are not bound by the same laws that real election campaigns are. No need to state who paid for the ad, or even to pay for it - just create a bunch of fake accounts and start spewing memes.
And you seriously believe that made people vote for *Trump*? Well, somebody's propaganda is definitely very effective! Three guesses who pays for those ads!
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I doubt it was that direct in most cases, i.e. someone sees a Russian meme and decided there and then to vote for Trump.
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It is insane to apply any relation at all. The DNC lost the race on their own. We can put Russiagate to rest please..
Re: I voted for Trump... (Score:1)
Re:I voted for Trump... (Score:5, Interesting)
The Russians were more subtle than that. They told lies to conservatives about what liberals wanted, and they told lies to liberals to make them think their votes didn't count or weren't necessary. Then they let people come to their own idiotic conclusions, because they were idiots. And they still are, so they'll fall for the same tricks — they think they're too smart to be fooled by russian trolls, just like you do, so they can be fooled again in exactly the same way.
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It isn't possible that people voted the way they did because they weren't happy with the status quo.
Of course they did. But voting for Trump produced a situation even worse than the status quo, which was an outcome obvious to anyone with two neurons to rub together, and in their right mind.
I also heard some of the current crop of politicians are Russian agents too.
It's conceivable, but the idea that Tulsi Gabbard is one seems really dumb. What good would that possibly do?
Hopefully they will stop meddling and we can go back to electing another Clinton or Bush. Maybe Chelsea?
That would be better than four more years of Cheeto Mussolini. I think that the Clintons and the Bushes are all the same kinds of criminals, but Trump is an even worse criminal. He doesn't give one fuck about any
Re:I voted for Trump... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Of course they did. But voting for Trump produced a situation even worse than the status quo, which was an outcome obvious to anyone with two neurons to rub together, and in their right mind."
Maybe to you. But there are a lot of people that are very upset with the direction of the country, and wanted a change. They got it. I'm not a Trump fan, but I understand why some people did what they did. Hint: it wasn't the Russians.
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I also heard some of the current crop of politicians are Russian agents too.
It's conceivable, but the idea that Tulsi Gabbard is one seems really dumb. What good would that possibly do?
I think the general allegation is that she's an asset, not an agent, a yuuuge difference.
But, anyone peddling divisive conspiracy theories is is an asset to those trying to divide. We're better off making fun of and pointing fingers at the trolls, not each other.
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I don't know if Tulsi Gabbard is an asset, an agent, or just some former Bernie Bot willing to use phrases like "she's a warmonger", "the rot at the heart of the DNC", etc. All the Russians did was amplify what various factions of the American left were saying about one another to stoke those devisions.
So whether Gabbard is playing along - or just being used - doesn't really matter. And the same went for Jill Stein. After the 2016 election, where she got enough votes to throw a few swing states, Stein ex
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I think it's so dumb.
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In 2015 Jill Stein had dinner with Putin and Michael Flynn. Did they discuss using her campaign to siphon off democratic votes?
I live in California which was guaranteed to vote against Trump. Jill Stein was literally the only candidate who was willing to really take a stand against environmental abusers in the last election. I voted for Sanders in the primary, as did the majority of voters in in the primary, but the DNC ignored our vote. So I voted for Stein, to help put that issue on the agenda in this election. California voted D as predicted. I don't know if Stein voters helped put climate change on the agenda for this election,
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Look, your California vote for Stein was just fine. But get this through your thick skull. The DNC did not ignore your vote for Bernie. He got fewer votes in your state than Hillary. Yes, they initially structured the primary season to build a sense of 'inevitability' going into the general election. But when Bernie became a viable candidate, he was not held back. The superdelegates that supposedly threw the nomination to Hillary did no such thing. She won the nomination with regular, elected delagat
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Look, your California vote for Stein was just fine. But get this through your thick skull. The DNC did not ignore your vote for Bernie. He got fewer votes in your state than Hillary.
https://www.vox.com/2014/12/29/7450793/invisible-primary
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Of course they did. But voting for Trump produced a situation even worse than the status quo, which was an outcome obvious to anyone with two neurons to rub together, and in their right mind.
Yep, and I would have (maybe) voted for trump as an anti-system vote.
The question is: Will the system change as a result? What will the Democrats offer us in exchange? That swamp still needs draining....
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The 'divisiveness' hypothesis is only a fallback position which came up when the claim that the IRA was campaigning for Trump became too stupid to maintain.
But if you look at what divisiveness means it's everywhere. CNN will promote divisiveness because conflict sells. That is also why there is so much conflict in movies. It's so boring otherwise. Clickbaitfarms need provocative content by nature. They also thrive on conflict, but without any need for consistency because all they want is clicks. IRA is a cl
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Your point about CNN is certainly valid. You never heard anything about Hillary other than email and 'scandal' - and Trump was wall-to-wall celebrity coverage. Click bait for sure. I don't know about divisiveness - but sensationalism, definitely.
Hell, even today, you get nightly panels of experts on Chris Matthews' MSNBC show debating whether we can call Trump a racist yet.
But that's all different from outright fraud - pretending to be a Black Lives Matter group saying the 'we' should not bother voting t
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I thought too there were a few oddities. But you have to look at the scale. If you want to have an effective impact you need scale and you need budget. The scale isn't there. When there is no scale there is no intent. There were inflated claims (129 million people reached!) but they're bogus (https://consortiumnews.com/2018/10/10/the-shaky-case-that-russia-manipulated-social-media-to-tip-the-2016-election/) When you zoom in on internet activity there is a lot of noisy stuff going on. A lot of shady activiti
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Because literally no one would have cared about Black Lives Matter or Blue Lives Matter if it weren't that Russian divisiveness. I don't doubt some Russians ran clickbait farms. But it was probably something a little more like this:
Ivan: "Hey Yuri, we need stupid Amerikanskis to come to our website for malwares so we can be stealing their rubles! What is up with the imperialist pig dogs these days?"
Yuri: "Okay, I go to C-N-N website. It says they all mad about something called "Bee El Em."
Ivan: "Okay, we ma
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Have you read the Mueller report? It says, second sentence so no need to read too far in, that Russia mounted an coordinated and effective campaign to manipulate Americans. Apparently some Americans even attended protest events organized by Russia, thinking they were grassroots efforts.
It was no money grab, it was a deliberate attempt by the government of Russia to interfere in the election, and almost certainly directed by Putin.
Denying this is just going to allow it to happen again. If you makes you feel
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Russia mounted an coordinated and effective campaign to manipulate Americans.
That they spent like $100,000 on. Who in their right mind thinks they're going to swing a US election for $100,000 in FaceBook ads? Who in their right mind thinks anyone could swing an election for $100,000 in FaceBook ads?
I think it's more likely that Mueller is just incompetent in many, many ways. And that an awful lot of people find comfort in blaming evil foreigners for losing an election rather than just realizing other people disagree with them and think their ideas are bad.
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Russia mounted an coordinated and effective campaign to manipulate Americans.
That they spent like $100,000 on. Who in their right mind thinks they're going to swing a US election for $100,000 in FaceBook ads? Who in their right mind thinks anyone could swing an election for $100,000 in FaceBook ads?
I never thought that was possible until the Russians actually did it. And we have ample evidence that's what actually happened. If you have some evidence that it didn't, feel free to link to it. But it had better be a credible source, or prepare for laughter.
I think it's more likely that Mueller is just incompetent in many, many ways.
History shows that Mueller is competent, and also has a hard-on for the law. You're operating solely on cognitive dissonance there.
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I never thought that was possible until the Russians actually did it
That they did social media influence, or that it had any tangible result on the outcome of the election?
History shows that Mueller is competent, and also has a hard-on for the law. You're operating solely on cognitive dissonance there.
Right. Like that anthrax case. And his brilliant legal theory that it's a prosecutor's job to exonerate. You sure it's me with the cog dis?
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The work done in the prior election will probably have more impact on 2020 than on 2016. Now anyone who doesn't line right up with the party lines is "A Russian Asset." This seems to be a Democrat tactic for the moment, but if impeachment moves further along you can bet the Republicans will be doing the same thing to anyone who doesn't stand firmly with Trump.
The sad thing is the tactics deployed by the Russians don't seem like they would be effective if the US could break out of the two party system. If
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They told lies to conservatives about what liberals wanted, and they told lies to liberals to make them think their votes didn't count or weren't necessary.
Fox News already does a great job at the former, and the latter is their own damn fault if they don't do their civic duty to show up at the polls.
My experience dealing with friends and family who support Trump is that political views aren't always as malleable as you're lead to believe. I've got a family member who doesn't want "free college" because they work in the for-profit college industry. A friend who makes their living selling houses in an area where the local army base is basically the whole loca
Re: I voted for Trump... (Score:1)
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My experience dealing with friends and family who support Trump is that political views aren't always as malleable as you're lead to believe.
Lead makes people believe insensible things. ;)
Seriously though, this election was special. People on both sides of the aisle are more ready for change than they have been in ages. We know beyond any doubt that at least some voters were never-clintons, and that some of the people who went on to vote for Trump did so because they couldn't vote for Sanders. Some of them explicitly stated that they would rather crash the system than help perpetuate it. The DNC's actions perverting the primary process to give t
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Anyone working in the college industry LOVES 'free' college, because it's not really free. It's just taking more money from people and giving it to others to spend on college.
I'm guessing some schools are afraid of having their curriculum and/or pricing scrutinized when Uncle Sam is footing the bill, who knows. Perhaps they don't like the idea of liberals getting a free ride? Guy who owns the college is a big Trump fan himself, so there it is.
I mean shit, you can just Google "conservative colleges" to find out it's a real thing and there's more than a few of them.
Sympathetic outreach to Trump supporters? (Score:1, Flamebait)
Just kidding on the new subject. They generally fill me with some combination of nausea and revulsion. Hard to feel any sympathy.
I did like your [drinkypoo's] comment and think it earned the favorable mods. However you didn't mention the divide-and-conquer part of it. Not just with dividing the Bernie Bros, but even earlier with supporting the fracturing of the former Trumpist-nee-Republican party. I think a lot of it was throwing targeted spam at likely suckers and watching carefully to see what stuck to e
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There's no need to speculate, we know that's exactly what they did. For example, they created a fake group called "Antifa Boston" and posted all about the fake violence it was gleefully committing. A while later people on Slashdot are claiming that Communists are taking over America and rioting all over the country.
It's not just the Russians either, a lot of the outrage news sites do it too. Outrage channels on YouTube are even worse.
Not new either, tabloids like the Daily Mail have been doing this for deca
Re: I voted for Trump... (Score:1)
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I would have voted for the other guy.
Pretty sure the "other guy" was a woman. But hey, she doesn't take the most flattering photographs, so it's an easy mistake to make.
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It is hard to remember if it was a woman/man/other. The Russian Facebook voodoo powers made me forget the details. Clever Russians! What are they going to make me do next?
Re: I voted for Trump... (Score:1)
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If flumbo (is that the currently correct pronoun? I am slow to keep track, my apologies) wants to be a woman, today flumbo can.
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Pretty sure the "other guy" was a woman.
If you don't vote for one of the two lizards, the wrong lizard might win!
Why dont you wake the fuck up. You are the reason the system appears to be two party. You buy the lie that if you dont vote for one of the two parties...
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Hey 3208, it seems you think advertising doesn't work, I guess all those companies spending billions on it are really dumb, they would never change anyone's mind and get them to make a decision based on some ads.
Those Russians sure must be dumb to, they spent all that time and money making millions of posts when it obviously could have no effect because Americans are way too smart to be tricked by ads. That is why Americans never make purchases they regret and never elect Presidents they regret. Good thing
Re: I voted for Trump... (Score:1)
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Set the narrative with a lie, wait a tiny bit for the lie to be repeated, retract that lie, then continue to report the narrative.
Thats how the U.S. press does it. They set the standard on how to do it.
Tusli Gabbard is a russian asset, a narrative set by people caught lying. The reason for the narrative was debunked months ago because the people pushing it were CAUGHT being complete frauds, but the narrative lives on anyways.
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That's not really what I don't believe, what I cannot wrap my mind around is that this wouldn't even affect his voters. At this point, I think the news could literally post a picture of him with a smoking gun and a dead school class of 7 year olds in front of him, him holding a PK afterwards where he gloats how he mowed down those rugrats and we'd get "Trump, Trump" chants.
THAT is the part I don't get.
somehwat related (Score:5, Interesting)
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Did the bots make you change your mind about the protests?
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Most likely not. But they are not aiming at him, they're aiming at his audience.
You don't think that in a political "debate" (I'll use the term loosely here) the two candidates try to convince the other candidate of their position, do you?
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They're probably just pointing out the hypocrisy of a country which doesn't let you say "fuck" on television, getting all worked up over issues of speech in a country that is at least upfront about their censorship.
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Yeah, Chinese nationalism is a parade the CCP got out in front of.
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So reporting about something is "meddling with internal affairs"?
Thank you for informing us what "freedom of press" means in China.
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Yeah. Right. Who was gonna have kiddy fuck parties in pizza parlors this time?
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You think that's a trivial level, look at the mod-bombing of comments critical of China here on Slashdot. I mean, who the fuck cares about Slashdot? It used to be totally influential, but these days it's leading Jack and shit, and Jack left town. But we've still got China promoters and obvious Russian trolls here. The fundamental problem is that russian trolling is cheap. When there's no jobs, they'll work for cabbage. They've got cheap energy from all their shoddy nuclear to run the computers, and who care
While they're at it, they should shut down CNN (Score:1, Troll)
While they're at it, they should shut down CNN. It's been spreading misinformation for years now.
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While they're at it, they should shut down CNN. It's been spreading misinformation for years now.
I don't think that "they" (Facebook) have the authority to do that. Nor should they.
However, they do have the authority to control the content on their own website.
As for the media (CNN or otherwise) spreading misinformation ... I'll just leave this here. [adfontesmedia.com] CNN doesn't come off as stellar on this chart, but they are far, far from the worst players in the industry (including Fox News.)
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You do know that they're told by Jeff Zucker himself what to say, literally every day during 9AM conference call, right? It's a matter of public record now.
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You do know that they're told by Jeff Zucker himself what to say, literally every day during 9AM conference call, right? It's a matter of public record now.
Citation please?
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https://twitter.com/JamesOKeef... [twitter.com]
Consider the source and all that, but there's been no denial by CNN. It's quite obvious that this is their modus operandi now, and has been at least since early 2016.
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Genetic fallacy. He's got people on tape, and the people on tape don't deny what they said on the tape.
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If Fox News is allowed to continue then CNN has to as well.
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Hey, as long as the media are telling different lies and their lies are still different from those the politicians tell, we still have at least some sort of democracy.
The problem is that the people believe those lies. That's something the various dictatorships of the East Bloc had on us: Their electorate at least knew that the Prawda is lying.
And yet fox news still exists... (Score:1)
evidence? (Score:2)
"The takedowns demonstrate that foreign influence operations are already targeting the 2020 election, but provide evidence that Russia's notorious troll farm is struggling to regain anything close to the influence in held in 2016."
that is, if you think that the troll farms haven't advanced.
much like anti-virus software that is always catching up to new tactics of virus writers, you shouldn't belive that these troll farms don't improve their tactics.
sure, the old, well known, ways will still be used, and whe
Re:evidence? or bot nets adapting (Score:2)
The modern farms use cross-platform posts on other services to host their messages. They control bot nets on one service, with link accounts in silent smurf mode that follow posts from other social media or even websites, and self-repair their nets.
Chasing the wind (Score:2)
Off by a factor of 10,000 (Score:2)
I hate to break it to FB, but there are a lot more smurf accounts than that.
Did they see all the posts in Canada from Russian bots? Intel services had to action many many times that many, not just the 200 FB admits to.
Zuck: "Only officials may spread disinformation!" (Score:2)
#justhillary (Score:1)
who else?