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from the not-fake-news-but-fake-people dept.
Facebook removes accounts with AI-generated profile photos:
Facebook on Friday removed what it called a global network of more than 900 accounts, pages, and groups from its platform and Instagram that allegedly used deceptive practices to push pro-Trump narratives to about 55 million users. The network used fake accounts, artificial amplification, and, notably, profile photos of fake faces generated using artificial intelligence to spread polarizing, predominantly right-wing content around the Web, including on Twitter and YouTube.
It represents an alarming new development in the information wars, as it appears to be the first large-scale deployment of AI-generated images in a social network. In a report on the influence operation, researchers from disinformation groups Graphika and DFRLab noted that this was the first time they had seen the technology used to support an inauthentic social media campaign.
The images were used to enhance the authenticity of some of the 610 Facebook accounts, 156 groups, 89 pages, and 72 Instagram accounts associated with "The BL," a digital news outlet that described itself as a "pure mountain spring, moistening the heart of every reader" on Facebook before it was removed. Facebook's investigation connected The BL to The Epoch Times, a conservative media organization with ties to Chinese spiritual group Falun Gong and a history of aggressive support for Donald Trump.
Ostensibly a US-based media organization, The BL network's pages were operated by users in Vietnam and the US, who, Facebook says, made widespread use of fake accounts to evade detection and funnel traffic to its own websites. A report by Graphika and DFRLab researchers found that the majority of The BL network's fake accounts were used to maintain a cluster of over 80 groups and pages promoting President Trump. The accounts acting as administrators for these pages—which boasted names such as "America Needs President Trump," "Trump for America's President," and "WE STAND WITH TRUMP & PENCE!"—were predominantly fake and created in Vietnam.
"Fake accounts served as the administrators of Facebook groups, increased the membership numbers of those groups, liked posts on the Pages, and posted large quantities of content from TheBL-related assets," the report notes. "This structure constituted a large-scale artificial amplification factory whose only observable function was to boost content from TheBL and, to a lesser extent, from the Epoch Times."
(Score: 4, Funny) by takyon on Wednesday December 25 2019, @04:26PM (2 children)
The Clone War has
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 25 2019, @04:52PM (1 child)
What you did there, I now see.
-- Yoda
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 26 2019, @06:14PM
See, what you there did, I do.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Wednesday December 25 2019, @04:40PM (5 children)
Facebook censoring on behalf of the CCP. Shame on you!
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 25 2019, @04:46PM (1 child)
Seems to me it's just FB doing what they said they were going to do -- remove fake accounts and related fake "likes", etc.
Falun Gong members are (I'm going to assume) free to post under their real names & faces.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Wednesday December 25 2019, @10:08PM
"please intimidate/follow/track/arrest me!"
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 3, Informative) by number11 on Wednesday December 25 2019, @06:54PM (2 children)
Nope. The CCP has no love for Falun Gong, that'll get you sent to a prison camp just as fast as being Uyghur. And I don't think China is that big a fan of Donald Trump, either. More likely Trump's patron Russia, though for all I know it could be work outsourced to Vietnam by billionaire Sheldon Adelson (he's got businesses in Singapore and Macao, dunno about Vietnam).
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 25 2019, @07:22PM (1 child)
It could be China trying to tarnish the reputation of Falun Gong by making it appear Falun Gong is spreading fake news. Some things are not what they seem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 25 2019, @10:24PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmFrYX7Qsjg [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by Username on Wednesday December 25 2019, @06:07PM
First part says China, Second says Vietnam. Which is it, and how can we use it to impeach Trump for the third time?
(Score: 1, Redundant) by EJ on Wednesday December 25 2019, @08:59PM (3 children)
The real story is how they didn't remove the fake left-wing accounts. The only reason this is news is because of the liberal media and the fact that Facebook is extremely left-wing.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Wednesday December 25 2019, @09:08PM
Is it that they didn't remove "left-wing fake accounts", or that the left wing accounts didn't use "AI"? How do you know?
My suspicion is that with the use of the term "AI" this story became notable enough for Soylent News.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Wednesday December 25 2019, @10:13PM (1 child)
they found a way of appeasing the Chinese government by removing accounts with apparently AI-generated photographs. (who wants to give the Chinese Government extra ammunition/information - fake name and fake photographs seem like sensible things to do to protect yourself)
Be interesting if anyone *not* associated with Falun Gong has an account removed because they had an AI-generated profile picture, or if coincidentally this only applies to accounts associated with Falun Gong.
Conspiracy? No. Profit protection? Yes! Oppression and possible arrest and death? Who cares - money!
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 26 2019, @04:36AM
> ... fake name and fake photographs seem like sensible things to do to protect yourself)
Of course. And if one Falun Gong member set up one FB account with a fake name and photo, that would probably sneak under the radar with little problem--and they could complain about Chinese oppression all they wanted.
It when they set up 900 accounts, each stroking the other to increase visibility and "credibility", that it gets noticed as a violation of the terms of service.