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BBC:
Facebook is under fire in Africa for undermining democracy, with critics saying the social media giant has allowed its platform to be weaponised for co-ordinated misinformation campaigns. The role of false news has taken centre stage in every single one of the continent's eight national polls this year - and last week Facebook said an Israel political consultancy was behind much of it.
It banned Archimedes Group, which it said was responsible for a network of those masquerading as African nationals, and removed 265 Facebook and Instagram pages and groups involved in "co-ordinated inauthentic behaviour" mainly targeting Nigeria, Senegal, Togo, Angola, Niger and Tunisia.
Nanjira Sambuli, from the World Wide Web Foundation, says it has taken Facebook too long to pay attention to this problem in developing countries. "Democracies are at risk on this continent, and unfortunately, social media platforms are fast becoming the sites of aggravation," she told the BBC.
Some feel the continent's weak regulations on privacy and data protection have meant Africa has been used as a "guinea pig" for privacy violations. "We're a training ground. Once it works in Africa, they replicate that and they use it across Africa other geographies," Cameroonian tech entrepreneur Rebecca Enonchong told the BBC.
Betteridge says "No," but my heart says, "Yes!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 27 2019, @07:14PM (1 child)
Funny, how these guys trust Facebook to do the right thing.
Yeah 'dumb fucks'. When your company starts out on that premise you are on shaky ground.
We have built some of the most sophisticated spying machines ever devised by man. The scope of the spying and manipulation that these companies are engaging in would make the Stasi and KGB blush. Why have we done this? All so we can show you something you want to ignore, advertisements. They have turned to deplatforming anyone they feel does not have their values. Censorship which they used to rail against is now their modus oporindi. Because they do not want to piss off the guy who is selling toothpaste.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 28 2019, @01:24PM
Envious perhaps since it would integrate well with their existing stuff, but not blush. The Stasi and KGB were already engaged in more intrusive and effective spying and manipulation, contrary to your assertion. For example, Facebook doesn't have a cultivated network of informers who secretly rat on their neighbors. It has, at best, a huge bunch of exhibitionists who occasionally mention their neighbors - certainly not in a way more optimized for gathering intelligence. Nor does Facebook have the ability to put people in prison for arbitrary reasons or threaten them with death by execution. That is a huge source of extremely effective manipulation unavailable to a company which strictly works off of voluntary information leaking.