5 ms·

Obama tried to give Zuckerberg a wake-up call over fake news on Facebook

NN88 9y ago
Facebook is so screwed. FYI, apparently in 2009, they were so broke that they couldn't find funding and relied heavily on a few Russian oligarchs to help fund their growth. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/technology/internet/27facebook.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/technology/internet/27face... Zuckerberg even met with the Russian president Medvedev too around the time of the IPO: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-usmanov/facebook-bet-pays-off-for-russias-usmanov-idUSBRE84G1BM20120517 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-usmanov/facebook... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjN_1IydBIA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjN_1IydBIA
zaroth 9y ago
I've heard the number $100,000 thrown around [1] as possibly Russian ad-spend on Facebook for "political" ads. I've read a story about a pretty corny Facebook group [2] promoting Texas succession and possibly also links to CA succession rallies as well. What I haven't heard is a reasonable argument on whether this mattered in the slightest. This is an election where over a billion dollars was spent by the major parties. The amount of hand-wringing over some astroturf seems over the top. Both campaigns spent heavily to influence social media. I remember reading specifically about Clinton PAC Correct the Record spending $1 million [3] to basically troll for her on social media. There is absolutely no reason, absent extraordinary evidence, to believe any of this influenced the election. It's not enough to just not want to believe people freely voted the way they did because the "wrong" candidate won. Take for example the "hacking" of 21 states election systems. Washington Post reports [4] that actually this was basically port scanning. Some states said the attack amounted to about one minute of scanning in an environment where they are being probed millions of times per day. It just seems rather breathless to me to single out "Russia" (actually Russian IPs) when scans are coming from IPs all over the world. [1] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/09/07/a-russian-firm-spent-100000-on-facebook-ads-trump-spent-0-on-tv-ads-for-the-first-202-days-of-his-campaign/?utm_term=.22100591c7c4 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/09/07/a-... [2] - http://www.businessinsider.com/russia-facebook-group-ads-texas-secession-secede-trump-clinton-2017-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/russia-facebook-group-ads-tex... [3] - https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/correct-the-record-online-trolls/484847/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/correct... [4] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/09/23/what-we-know-about-the-21-states-targeted-by-russian-hackers/?utm_term=.a1e94e959783 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/09/23/wh...
- thesmallestcat 9y ago
  "Correct the record" should go down in infamy but I'm afraid it will instead become the norm. Where you simply cannot hold a meaningful political conversation over public channels in the lead-up to a presidential election.
  - panarky 9y ago
    > I've heard the number $100,000 thrown around ... The truth is that we don't know the total spend. FTFA: Congressional investigators say the disclosure only scratches the surface. One called Facebook’s discoveries thus far "the tip of the iceberg." If the $100k really is the "tip of the iceberg", and 90% of icebergs are under water, it could be $1M paid ads for Facebook. And that doesn't count the well documented fake news campaign for organic social sharing, which could easily be a multiple of this in spend and impact. Since the election was decided by less than 100,000 votes, it seems plausible that this could have flipped it.
    - thesmallestcat 9y ago
      I think you replied to the wrong comment.
- abnry 9y ago
  It's not a specific problem as it is--aside from propaganda in general. But if the ads purchased by Russians are linked to a direct promise of aid to the Trump campaign then that is solid evidence in court of collusion.
  - zaroth 9y ago
    My understanding of the law is the Facebook ad buy would only be illegal if requested or overseen by a campaign, or if they were overtly political. “There’s a lot of uncertainty,” said Richard L. Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California at Irvine. “If they had ads that just were making statements about immigration and gay marriage and there was no mention of a candidate,” they would not meet the FEC's definition of an independent expenditure, he said. [1] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/09/07/did-facebook-ads-traced-to-a-russian-company-violate-u-s-election-law/?utm_term=.075fb6218142 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/09...
forapurpose 9y ago
The title (which is the Post's title) is terrible. This article is about much more than Obama's warning; it's an extensive history of how Facebook learned of the threat and what they tried to do.

NN88 9y ago

Facebook is so screwed. FYI, apparently in 2009, they were so broke that they couldn't find funding and relied heavily on a few Russian oligarchs to help fund their growth. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/technology/internet/27facebook.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/technology/internet/27face... Zuckerberg even met with the Russian president Medvedev too around the time of the IPO: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-usmanov/facebook-bet-pays-off-for-russias-usmanov-idUSBRE84G1BM20120517 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-usmanov/facebook... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjN_1IydBIA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjN_1IydBIA

zaroth 9y ago

I've heard the number $100,000 thrown around [1] as possibly Russian ad-spend on Facebook for "political" ads. I've read a story about a pretty corny Facebook group [2] promoting Texas succession and possibly also links to CA succession rallies as well. What I haven't heard is a reasonable argument on whether this mattered in the slightest. This is an election where over a billion dollars was spent by the major parties. The amount of hand-wringing over some astroturf seems over the top. Both campaigns spent heavily to influence social media. I remember reading specifically about Clinton PAC Correct the Record spending $1 million [3] to basically troll for her on social media. There is absolutely no reason, absent extraordinary evidence, to believe any of this influenced the election. It's not enough to just not want to believe people freely voted the way they did because the "wrong" candidate won. Take for example the "hacking" of 21 states election systems. Washington Post reports [4] that actually this was basically port scanning. Some states said the attack amounted to about one minute of scanning in an environment where they are being probed millions of times per day. It just seems rather breathless to me to single out "Russia" (actually Russian IPs) when scans are coming from IPs all over the world. [1] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/09/07/a-russian-firm-spent-100000-on-facebook-ads-trump-spent-0-on-tv-ads-for-the-first-202-days-of-his-campaign/?utm_term=.22100591c7c4 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/09/07/a-... [2] - http://www.businessinsider.com/russia-facebook-group-ads-texas-secession-secede-trump-clinton-2017-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/russia-facebook-group-ads-tex... [3] - https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/correct-the-record-online-trolls/484847/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/correct... [4] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/09/23/what-we-know-about-the-21-states-targeted-by-russian-hackers/?utm_term=.a1e94e959783 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/09/23/wh...

thesmallestcat 9y ago
"Correct the record" should go down in infamy but I'm afraid it will instead become the norm. Where you simply cannot hold a meaningful political conversation over public channels in the lead-up to a presidential election.
- panarky 9y ago
  > I've heard the number $100,000 thrown around ... The truth is that we don't know the total spend. FTFA: Congressional investigators say the disclosure only scratches the surface. One called Facebook’s discoveries thus far "the tip of the iceberg." If the $100k really is the "tip of the iceberg", and 90% of icebergs are under water, it could be $1M paid ads for Facebook. And that doesn't count the well documented fake news campaign for organic social sharing, which could easily be a multiple of this in spend and impact. Since the election was decided by less than 100,000 votes, it seems plausible that this could have flipped it.
  - thesmallestcat 9y ago
    I think you replied to the wrong comment.
abnry 9y ago
It's not a specific problem as it is--aside from propaganda in general. But if the ads purchased by Russians are linked to a direct promise of aid to the Trump campaign then that is solid evidence in court of collusion.
- zaroth 9y ago
  My understanding of the law is the Facebook ad buy would only be illegal if requested or overseen by a campaign, or if they were overtly political. “There’s a lot of uncertainty,” said Richard L. Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California at Irvine. “If they had ads that just were making statements about immigration and gay marriage and there was no mention of a candidate,” they would not meet the FEC's definition of an independent expenditure, he said. [1] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/09/07/did-facebook-ads-traced-to-a-russian-company-violate-u-s-election-law/?utm_term=.075fb6218142 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/09...

forapurpose 9y ago

The title (which is the Post's title) is terrible. This article is about much more than Obama's warning; it's an extensive history of how Facebook learned of the threat and what they tried to do.