From Musk memes and hacked celebs to #Boomerbait and disinformation, Facebook is being overrun by algorithmic sludge and right-wing propaganda—while Meta looks the other way.
That was an incredible article, thank you for your diligent research on this bizarre phenomenon.
The scary thing is, I think we are only starting to see the emergence of this - I think a tsunami of this slop will follow, and will wreck absolute havoc on truth making, dialogue and civility.
That Facebook is not being held accountable for allowing this dreck to proliferate is disgusting. That they appear indifferent to even addressing it is appalling.
Do you have any definitive ideas as to the ultimate motivations of these campaigns? Are they simply tools to gain engagement, and potentially be used later for dissemination of actual political propaganda during elections? Or perhaps they are a tool to measure sentiment and political leanings of those who engage with the content - which would then provide detailed data sets on who, and how to target those individuals later for future campaigns.
To speculate even further, would it be outside the realm of possibility that this content is actually generated via Facebook itself (via a series of shell companies) for the express purpose of garnering more precise data points, which can be used and sold for highly targeted campaigns in the future? 🤔
Thanks for reading John. I have seen in the past them being plumped to be then sold and used in political campaigns (See the Qatar plot for example). In that case the Vietnamese guy running the network said he sold it to an anonymous buyer on Signal...Re your latter point it has crossed my mind but the quality is super low - I think it's easier for them to turn a blind eye, and cheaper too since those doing this probably have low margins.
That was an incredible article, thank you for your diligent research on this bizarre phenomenon.
The scary thing is, I think we are only starting to see the emergence of this - I think a tsunami of this slop will follow, and will wreck absolute havoc on truth making, dialogue and civility.
That Facebook is not being held accountable for allowing this dreck to proliferate is disgusting. That they appear indifferent to even addressing it is appalling.
Do you have any definitive ideas as to the ultimate motivations of these campaigns? Are they simply tools to gain engagement, and potentially be used later for dissemination of actual political propaganda during elections? Or perhaps they are a tool to measure sentiment and political leanings of those who engage with the content - which would then provide detailed data sets on who, and how to target those individuals later for future campaigns.
To speculate even further, would it be outside the realm of possibility that this content is actually generated via Facebook itself (via a series of shell companies) for the express purpose of garnering more precise data points, which can be used and sold for highly targeted campaigns in the future? 🤔
Thanks for reading John. I have seen in the past them being plumped to be then sold and used in political campaigns (See the Qatar plot for example). In that case the Vietnamese guy running the network said he sold it to an anonymous buyer on Signal...Re your latter point it has crossed my mind but the quality is super low - I think it's easier for them to turn a blind eye, and cheaper too since those doing this probably have low margins.