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The Russian Connection: The Social Media War

General Discussion
#23

Side note on this: only works on desktop, not mobile (not clue why?!).

1 Like
#24

Tech companies really making a splash today with late breaking news in regards to Russia/2016 election…

tl;dr on the updated numbers:

  • Additional 1,062 accounts specifically linked to the Russian-backed Internet Research Agency (IRA) (grand total now: 3,814)
    • The IRA accounts posted 175,993 Tweets, approximately 8.4% of which were election-related
  • Additional 13,512 automated accounts identified as Russian-linked & tweeting election-related content during the election period (grand total now: 50,258 !!!)
  • A total of 677,775 people in the US followed, retweeted or liked a tweet from one (or more) of these accounts during the election period. Twitter is emailing notifications to these users.

Unlike Facebook, they’ve published what they are doing to help safeguard the 2018 mid-term elections:

  • Verify major party candidates for all statewide and federal elective offices, and major national party accounts, as a hedge against impersonation;
  • Maintain open lines of communication to federal and state election officials to quickly escalate issues that arise;
  • Address escalations of account issues with respect to violations of Twitter Rules or applicable laws;
  • Continually improve and apply our anti-spam technology to address networks of malicious automation targeting election-related matters; and
  • Monitor trends and spikes in conversations relating to the 2018 elections for potential manipulation activity.
#25

The twitter war with Russian accounts continues in the wake of tragedy.

2 Likes
#26

This needs no introduction. :see_no_evil:

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#27

That is super interesting. I would imagine it’s very dangerous to put your name to such an interview but it sounds like several former Troll Farm employees are doing so.

3 Likes
#28

One of the three trolls would write something negative about the news, the other two would respond, “You are wrong,” and post links and such. And the negative one would eventually act convinced. Those are the kinds of plays we had to act out.

They drove up comments with fake interaction amongst themselves, that reached conclusions that supported their narrative. Even with the recent changes to Facebook this attack style would still work. :woman_facepalming:t2:

This latest algorithm change toward “meaningful engagement” seems like an obvious response to the crisis it found itself in by the end of 2017. So here we are, at a new phase in Facebook’s history, when comments are king.

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#30

Am I reading this right? Facebook suspends Cambridge Analytica for stealing people’s information.

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#31

Protecting people’s information is at the heart of everything we do

lmfao ‘k.

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#33

FB smackdown on Cambridge Analytica. They are accused of fraudulently obtaining user data and probably using it to target pro-Trump ads. I’m hoping it will be more than a temp suspension.

1 Like
#34

:open_mouth:

Christopher Wylie, who worked for data firm Cambridge Analytica, reveals how personal information was taken without authorisation in early 2014 to build a system that could profile individual US voters in order to target them with personalised political advertisements. At the time the company was owned by the hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer, and headed at the time by Donald Trump’s key adviser, Steve Bannon. Its CEO is Alexander Nix

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#35

Speaking of a conspiracy to overthrow… you know, what Russia is doing is awful, but it’s also what we EXPECT of them…they’ve been the enemy of the free world for a long time. But this ^^^ from within…
shows just how little shame some in the billionaire class really have, as IF we didn’t already have trump to demonstrate that. He’s not the only traitor here. He didn’t do this alone. Just saying…

2 Likes
#36

The Guardian is doing an amazing series on Cambridge Analytica. This article explains how they may have violated the law. :point_down:

3 Likes
#37
#38
#39

Thanks for the compilation of material.

#40
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#41

The first rule of Facebook is that you don’t talk about Facebook. :smirk:

4 Likes
#42

I follow one of the authors of these articles, @carolecadwalla, since she broke this story last year and she’s putting out some great snippets on her feed:

Facey was unhappy with the whole damn thing:

Another unhappy facey employee:


Well he seems cheerful lol
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#43

https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-is-pummeled-by-user-data-blowback-1521505969

Will Facebook survive the Cambridge Analytica debacle? This has now spread to my state (NC) where one of our Senators (Tillis) and the GOP have been accused of paying over $300k for data from the FB / Cambridge mining activity. WTF

1 Like
#44

I’m just so happy that I’ve never been a fan (or user) of Facebook. Looked it over & ran the other way- I just didn’t trust the privacy issues, etc.

3 Likes