it’s not just the Russians coming… it’s the conservatives that are here
From the news last night — our parallels with the UK are disturbing
Boris Johnson ally’s firm secretly ran Facebook propaganda network (Guardian Aug 1)
(You’ll really want to read the full article about how it’s done — they even have charts and diagrams!… it just takes some money, secrecy and unethical behavior)
Russian interference is real and intended to sow distrust in “elections”, but conservative parties are actually interfering in elections to retain disproportionate power.
(With McConnell’s manipulation, Trump has now appointed nearly one in four of all federal circuit court judges, a serious consequence of his “legacy.” The picks are far more conservative and less diverse than his predecessor's. The conservatives are disproportionately the ref’s and umpires)
3 things to consider:
- In this Guardian article, Facebook says they only crack down on foreign fake news (what they call “coordinated inauthentic behaviour”) — they do not consider domestic efforts to be violations — that is serious
- In the US, the Republicans are backing the “Deter Act” which is almost exclusively focused on “interference” by Russia and “foreign actors” — we noted that it’s mostly hype, Trump’s new head of intelligence gets to decide who’s in violation — and Trump can excuse anyone he wants. It also has no affect on domestic “coordinated inauthentic behavior” — fake news
- The US conservatives are coordinating all of their convenient loopholes while threatening the giant tech/social-media companies with “anti-trust” (which they have never cared about) — are they looking for leverage to ensure accommodation to their news? In the article Facebook has said the don’t feel they can regulate what’s “real” — it will be up to Congress to decide.
Johnson ally’s firm secretly ran Facebook propaganda network (Guardian Aug 1)
Sir Lynton Crosby’s firm CTF has built unbranded disinformation pages for Saudi Arabia and major polluters
The lobbying firm run by Boris Johnson’s close ally Sir Lynton Crosby has secretly built a network of unbranded “news” pages on Facebook for dozens of clients ranging from the Saudi government to major polluters, a Guardian investigation has found.
In the most complete account yet of CTF Partners’ outlook and strategy, current and former employees of the campaign consultancy have painted a picture of a business that appears to have professionalised online disinformation, taken on a series of controversial clients and faced incidents of misogynistic bullying in its headquarters.
They said that such was the culture of secrecy within the firm that staff working on online disinformation campaigns, which selectively promoted their clients’ viewpoints on anonymised Facebook pages that followed a common formula, used initials rather than full names on internal systems and often relied on personal email accounts to avoid their work being traced back to CTF and its clients.
…
The news follows the Guardian’s April report that Crosby’s company was behind a series of hugely influential pro-Brexit Facebook groups, which spent as much as £1m seeding the idea of a no-deal exit from the EU in the minds of the British public.
And they expose a major flaw in Facebook’s political transparency tools, which make it possible for Crosby’s company to use the social network to run professional-looking “news” pages reaching tens of millions of people on highly contentious topics, without apparently disclosing that they are being overseen by CTF Partners on behalf of paying clients.
… “For instance, if we were working to promote the use of coal, it would be an anti-environmental page. You might make a page designed to attract pro-Trump types and get them revved up about green subsidies.”
This is what Facebook claims they can’t prevent — “misleading information” by domestic agents is NOT against their policy (and it’s profitable!)
… The supposed news sources, which were liked by millions of users and reached tens of millions through the use of paid Facebook adverts, were grown using the social network’s promotional tools, with assistance from Facebook sales teams who encouraged the purchase of more promotions. Once CTF employees found a tactic that provoked a strong reaction, they would double down, according to one of the ex-employees: “If you’re after the MAGA [make America great again] crowd you just target people like this. Then once you’ve got an audience you just target people like that.”
One such news page – entitled GreenWatch – published repeated attacks against subsidies for “wasteful onshore wind farms” using the slogan “keeping the green lobby honest”, without any sign it was overseen by Crosby’s company, which had a contract with major coal miner Glencore.
Trump loves the uneducated — “gullible” is their core. This is why Trump held a “troll summit” at the White House, why Ted Cruz and the Republican party are so adamant about preventing crackdowns on “fake news” (and why they don't really care about “monopolies” or anti-trust) — they just want to have some leverage to force those companies to allow “their views” — kinda like they did by threatening the funding for NPR
How, exactly, is the Republican party different from an extortion racket?
And do NOT expect any help from Facebook
Many of the Facebook pages were deleted after the Guardian began making enquiries. After being presented with the Guardian’s findings about the scale of the company’s online disinformation campaign, Facebook said it did not want to start regulating what constituted a legitimate news source.
It also said the network of pages pretending to be news sources on behalf of corporate and state clients did not break their rules on “coordinated inauthentic behaviour”, a term used to shut down disinformation networks overseen by foreign governments in Russia and Iran.
This is because Crosby’s employees used their real names on internal Facebook administration tools – information that is not available to the general public. The Guardian has seen documents that suggest Facebook has been aware of the issue involving the network of CTF pages since late last year.
So fake news of “coordinated inauthentic behavior” by conservative Republicans is also not a violation
These sites are “professional disinformation” — they are designed to look and give the impression of a real news organization… I suspect many well-intentioned people “believe” those kinds of sites (and resend articles to their friends)
Quite a lot of people could not tell the difference between real, fake and “true-ish” (with omissions of key context or by shaded use of phrasing) — a lot of NPR stories into that last category!
That’s the second problem…
You can have a “factual” story specifically designed to pander to, or manipulate peoples interpretation… and frankly that line is almost impossible to define
One persons propaganda is another persons “inform” — and of course, the arbiters often end up being CEO’s (considering profits), politicians (considering power) or court judges (considering their ideological views)
Go read the details and leave a comment on how best to stop it…
(also if you appreciate the Guardian’s journalism, feel free to contribute or subscribe to them)