23 ms·

Meta shuts down Israeli network pushing AI-generated propaganda in U.S.

86 points by ewgfdgdfgdf 2y ago

sebzim4500 2y ago
>The Israeli network included 510 Facebook accounts, 11 pages, one group, and 32 Instagram accounts. Meta said that it took the network down early in its audience-building efforts, before it was able to generate activity among authentic communities. The network had fewer than 500 followers on Facebook, fewer than 100 group members, and about 2,000 Instagram followers I don't use facebook, but is this really significant compared to the enormous number of bots that I assume exist? Certainly banning 500 bots on youtube or twitter would not be noticable.
- suoduandao3 2y ago
  I don't think it's the number of bots as much as who they belonged to that's being reported on. Russian activity on facebook prior to the 2016 presidential election was similarly modest.
- jvanderbot 2y ago
  Didn't your quote precisely say that it wasn't very large yet? I think thats the point - to get it early.
- colechristensen 2y ago
  Facebook is absolutely filled with garbage. About 1% of the people I ever connected with are still active, and half of them are obnoxious users. (and the other half are delightful, why yes I do indeed want to see the vintage cookie press that made cookies from the ancestral home country that my mothers cousin found at an estate sale) The rest of facebook for me are a couple of closed groups that are a decent community and then just tons and tons of garbage. Uncomfortable sexualization in several categories that one has to work to get FB to stop showing you, rage bait petty fake stories reposted from "Ask Abby" or /r/aita, and AI generated bait of all types like fake (movie posters | news items | celeb nonsense). I'm pretty sure there just isn't any content left getting posted on facebook.
  - michaelteter 2y ago
    I have a super minimal Facebook account, just for those times when the only group or company access is via FB. My feeling is that Facebook itself is generating a lot of the content, probably also the users and groups - at least for some benign topics. What I see on my wall is endless posts for topics I _might_ be interested in, or tangentially might. Since many of them are architectural, and the visuals are usually obviously AI generated. And yet, they appear to show a lot of engagement: tens of thousands of comments, likes, etc. From the comments on these obviously fake posts, I must assume that most of the commentors are bots or fake accounts. It might give the appearance (to advertisers) that Facebook is relevant.
- akira2501 2y ago
  > Certainly banning 500 bots on youtube or twitter would not be noticable. If they were 500 independent bots, sure. If they're 500 bots that are coordinated, then I wouldn't be so sure, because the logic cuts the other way. "Certainly spending money and political capital to run just 500 bots on youtube wouldn't move the needle and would create much useless risk."
- mbesto 2y ago
  This is the problem with reporting these numbers. Virality works like a pyramid, the effect is felt throughout the whole pyramid, but only takes the top of it to set it into action. 10,000 facebook accounts with 100 followers who then have 1000 followers is very different than 500 facebook accounts with 100,000 followers who then have 10M followers.
  - krapp 2y ago
    It doesn't take many, social media is a far greater force multiplier than people realize. Just 12 people were behind most COVID-19 hoaxes spread online, and about 10 "superspreader" accounts are responsible for about 70% of "low credibility" tweets[0,1]. [0]https://www.npr.org/2021/05/13/996570855/disinformation-dozen-test-facebooks-twitters-ability-to-curb-vaccine-hoaxes https://www.npr.org/2021/05/13/996570855/disinformation-doze... [1]https://phys.org/news/2024-05-superspreaders-responsible-large-portion-misinformation.html https://phys.org/news/2024-05-superspreaders-responsible-lar...
- 082349872349872 2y ago
  Like the stash of midget donkey necro porn, at some point there are going to be botnets which exist in order to be caught, thus drawing attention away from the better hidden botnets — compare Obi Wan distracting Vader while R2 escapes... (did the Allies ever leak a story that Normandy would be the target of the D-day landings, but so crudely done that it was "obviously" a plant?)
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
artninja1988 2y ago
There seems to be a lot of these bots on twitter. I hate starting to read a post only to realize it's a bot trying to push scams/ whatever I've just wasted my time on. At times like these I almost wish for some kind of digital ID to have a verification of interacting with a human. Don't know if that's possible in a robust and truly privacy preserving way
- sandworm101 2y ago
  >> some kind of digital ID to have a verification of interacting with a human. So a reverse captcha? Maybe we could append the results of a captcha to a post. Here is my theory about democracy, and here is proof that I can correctly spot bicycles.
- sebzim4500 2y ago
  I don't think that's necessary. A regex could catch a huge number of bots on twitter, but if they banned them they would have to admit that usage has gone down.
jmclnx 2y ago
>Meta has removed a network of hundreds of Facebook and Instagram accounts that operated from Israel and launched an influence campaign targeting users in the U.S. and Canada I do not use Facebook, and I think this is a good thing. But what about Hamas ? I am sure Hamas also has their own bot network(s) targeting people in the US, or was that already done but there was no press about that ?
- ajkjk 2y ago
  Why are you sure..? They have many fewer resources at their disposal.
  - caconym_ 2y ago
    Exactly what I was going to say. Like, I have no idea, but this is an incredibly asymmetrical conflict and neither possibility (Hamas' social media misinformation campaign is comparable to Israel's, or it isn't) would surprise me.
    - cooloo 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - AnimalMuppet 2y ago
        Make your point without the personal attack. Personal attacks are against site guidelines. Also, you persuade people better without them.
      - aaomidi 2y ago
        I think folks mistake genuine concern for Gazans and Palestinians with “Bots”. I also don’t blame normal folks with this when Nancy Pelosi also made the same baseless accusation. It turns out some people really hate genocide and will spend hours doing what they can to prevent it.
      - caconym_ 2y ago
        In a space so rife with misinformation playing to both sides, I'm not interested in listening to claims like this made with zero evidence. Sorry.
seanvelasco 2y ago
Now do the same for Iran-backed campaigns. And China's.
- ceejayoz 2y ago
  Both happen regularly. Iran: https://www.reuters.com/technology/meta-removes-iran-based-fake-accounts-targeting-instagram-users-scotland-2022-01-20/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/meta-removes-iran-based-f... China (and Russia): https://www.npr.org/2023/08/29/1196117574/meta-says-chinese-russian-influence-operations-are-among-the-biggest-its-taken-d https://www.npr.org/2023/08/29/1196117574/meta-says-chinese-...
- starik36 2y ago
  The article states that an Iranian network targeting Israelis was also shut down. It also states that the Iranian network "had a broader influence than the Israeli network". Why did the site decide to go with the title only mentioning Israeli network, given that the Iranian network was bigger... hmmm.
  - InitialLastName 2y ago
    It couldn't possibly be because it's an American site writing for an American audience, so a network targeting Americans is more newsworthy (to them) than a network targeting Israelis, right?
    - wk_end 2y ago
      Except...it's not an American site; it's an Israeli site: https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/home/0,7340,L-5246,00.html https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/home/0,7340,L-5246,00.htm...
      - InitialLastName 2y ago
        Interesting. That seems to further unwind the bias accusation, though.
aaomidi 2y ago
Flagged in 3..2..
- brink 2y ago
  A lot of highly divisive political articles coming up on the front page today before getting flagged.
- lupusreal 2y ago
  That was an easy call to be fair.
aerodog 2y ago
Zuckerberg is a Zionist and FB / IG are there to help the Zionist agenda, not to work against it.
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
Link to report here: https://transparency.meta.com/metasecurity/threat-reporting#2024 https://transparency.meta.com/metasecurity/threat-reporting#...
Teever 2y ago
Can anyone speculate on why this post was flagged? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40509030 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40509030
- exolymph 2y ago
  It's political, a lot of users don't like divisive topics being featured on HN.
  - Teever 2y ago
    I bet dollars to donuts that it wouldn't have been flagged (and/or stayed flagged) if it was about Russia, China or North Korea. Oh look, this one is flagged too. What's up dang?
- WalterSear 2y ago
  I don't need to.
- invalidname 2y ago
  Because it only discusses the Israeli network shut down and not the Iranian one that they also shut down.
  - Teever 2y ago
    Why does that mean that it gets flagged? Why not post a link about the Iranian stuff?

86 points by ewgfdgdfgdf 2y ago

>The Israeli network included 510 Facebook accounts, 11 pages, one group, and 32 Instagram accounts. Meta said that it took the network down early in its audience-building efforts, before it was able to generate activity among authentic communities. The network had fewer than 500 followers on Facebook, fewer than 100 group members, and about 2,000 Instagram followers I don't use facebook, but is this really significant compared to the enormous number of bots that I assume exist? Certainly banning 500 bots on youtube or twitter would not be noticable.

suoduandao3 2y ago
I don't think it's the number of bots as much as who they belonged to that's being reported on. Russian activity on facebook prior to the 2016 presidential election was similarly modest.
jvanderbot 2y ago
Didn't your quote precisely say that it wasn't very large yet? I think thats the point - to get it early.
colechristensen 2y ago
Facebook is absolutely filled with garbage. About 1% of the people I ever connected with are still active, and half of them are obnoxious users. (and the other half are delightful, why yes I do indeed want to see the vintage cookie press that made cookies from the ancestral home country that my mothers cousin found at an estate sale) The rest of facebook for me are a couple of closed groups that are a decent community and then just tons and tons of garbage. Uncomfortable sexualization in several categories that one has to work to get FB to stop showing you, rage bait petty fake stories reposted from "Ask Abby" or /r/aita, and AI generated bait of all types like fake (movie posters | news items | celeb nonsense). I'm pretty sure there just isn't any content left getting posted on facebook.
- michaelteter 2y ago
  I have a super minimal Facebook account, just for those times when the only group or company access is via FB. My feeling is that Facebook itself is generating a lot of the content, probably also the users and groups - at least for some benign topics. What I see on my wall is endless posts for topics I _might_ be interested in, or tangentially might. Since many of them are architectural, and the visuals are usually obviously AI generated. And yet, they appear to show a lot of engagement: tens of thousands of comments, likes, etc. From the comments on these obviously fake posts, I must assume that most of the commentors are bots or fake accounts. It might give the appearance (to advertisers) that Facebook is relevant.
akira2501 2y ago
> Certainly banning 500 bots on youtube or twitter would not be noticable. If they were 500 independent bots, sure. If they're 500 bots that are coordinated, then I wouldn't be so sure, because the logic cuts the other way. "Certainly spending money and political capital to run just 500 bots on youtube wouldn't move the needle and would create much useless risk."
mbesto 2y ago
This is the problem with reporting these numbers. Virality works like a pyramid, the effect is felt throughout the whole pyramid, but only takes the top of it to set it into action. 10,000 facebook accounts with 100 followers who then have 1000 followers is very different than 500 facebook accounts with 100,000 followers who then have 10M followers.
- krapp 2y ago
  It doesn't take many, social media is a far greater force multiplier than people realize. Just 12 people were behind most COVID-19 hoaxes spread online, and about 10 "superspreader" accounts are responsible for about 70% of "low credibility" tweets[0,1]. [0]https://www.npr.org/2021/05/13/996570855/disinformation-dozen-test-facebooks-twitters-ability-to-curb-vaccine-hoaxes https://www.npr.org/2021/05/13/996570855/disinformation-doze... [1]https://phys.org/news/2024-05-superspreaders-responsible-large-portion-misinformation.html https://phys.org/news/2024-05-superspreaders-responsible-lar...
082349872349872 2y ago
Like the stash of midget donkey necro porn, at some point there are going to be botnets which exist in order to be caught, thus drawing attention away from the better hidden botnets — compare Obi Wan distracting Vader while R2 escapes... (did the Allies ever leak a story that Normandy would be the target of the D-day landings, but so crudely done that it was "obviously" a plant?)
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

artninja1988 2y ago

There seems to be a lot of these bots on twitter. I hate starting to read a post only to realize it's a bot trying to push scams/ whatever I've just wasted my time on. At times like these I almost wish for some kind of digital ID to have a verification of interacting with a human. Don't know if that's possible in a robust and truly privacy preserving way

sandworm101 2y ago
>> some kind of digital ID to have a verification of interacting with a human. So a reverse captcha? Maybe we could append the results of a captcha to a post. Here is my theory about democracy, and here is proof that I can correctly spot bicycles.
sebzim4500 2y ago
I don't think that's necessary. A regex could catch a huge number of bots on twitter, but if they banned them they would have to admit that usage has gone down.

jmclnx 2y ago

>Meta has removed a network of hundreds of Facebook and Instagram accounts that operated from Israel and launched an influence campaign targeting users in the U.S. and Canada I do not use Facebook, and I think this is a good thing. But what about Hamas ? I am sure Hamas also has their own bot network(s) targeting people in the US, or was that already done but there was no press about that ?

ajkjk 2y ago
Why are you sure..? They have many fewer resources at their disposal.
- caconym_ 2y ago
  Exactly what I was going to say. Like, I have no idea, but this is an incredibly asymmetrical conflict and neither possibility (Hamas' social media misinformation campaign is comparable to Israel's, or it isn't) would surprise me.
  - cooloo 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - AnimalMuppet 2y ago
      Make your point without the personal attack. Personal attacks are against site guidelines. Also, you persuade people better without them.
    - aaomidi 2y ago
      I think folks mistake genuine concern for Gazans and Palestinians with “Bots”. I also don’t blame normal folks with this when Nancy Pelosi also made the same baseless accusation. It turns out some people really hate genocide and will spend hours doing what they can to prevent it.
    - caconym_ 2y ago
      In a space so rife with misinformation playing to both sides, I'm not interested in listening to claims like this made with zero evidence. Sorry.

seanvelasco 2y ago

Now do the same for Iran-backed campaigns. And China's.

ceejayoz 2y ago
Both happen regularly. Iran: https://www.reuters.com/technology/meta-removes-iran-based-fake-accounts-targeting-instagram-users-scotland-2022-01-20/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/meta-removes-iran-based-f... China (and Russia): https://www.npr.org/2023/08/29/1196117574/meta-says-chinese-russian-influence-operations-are-among-the-biggest-its-taken-d https://www.npr.org/2023/08/29/1196117574/meta-says-chinese-...
starik36 2y ago
The article states that an Iranian network targeting Israelis was also shut down. It also states that the Iranian network "had a broader influence than the Israeli network". Why did the site decide to go with the title only mentioning Israeli network, given that the Iranian network was bigger... hmmm.
- InitialLastName 2y ago
  It couldn't possibly be because it's an American site writing for an American audience, so a network targeting Americans is more newsworthy (to them) than a network targeting Israelis, right?
  - wk_end 2y ago
    Except...it's not an American site; it's an Israeli site: https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/home/0,7340,L-5246,00.html https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/home/0,7340,L-5246,00.htm...
    - InitialLastName 2y ago
      Interesting. That seems to further unwind the bias accusation, though.

aaomidi 2y ago

Flagged in 3..2..

brink 2y ago
A lot of highly divisive political articles coming up on the front page today before getting flagged.
lupusreal 2y ago
That was an easy call to be fair.

aerodog 2y ago

Zuckerberg is a Zionist and FB / IG are there to help the Zionist agenda, not to work against it.

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

Link to report here: https://transparency.meta.com/metasecurity/threat-reporting#2024 https://transparency.meta.com/metasecurity/threat-reporting#...

Teever 2y ago

Can anyone speculate on why this post was flagged? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40509030 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40509030

exolymph 2y ago
It's political, a lot of users don't like divisive topics being featured on HN.
- Teever 2y ago
  I bet dollars to donuts that it wouldn't have been flagged (and/or stayed flagged) if it was about Russia, China or North Korea. Oh look, this one is flagged too. What's up dang?
WalterSear 2y ago
I don't need to.
invalidname 2y ago
Because it only discusses the Israeli network shut down and not the Iranian one that they also shut down.
- Teever 2y ago
  Why does that mean that it gets flagged? Why not post a link about the Iranian stuff?