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The report from Graphika has additional info about the US activity: https://public-assets.graphika.com/reports/graphika_stanford_internet_observatory_report_unh
by neuronexmachina 4y ago
The report from Graphika has additional info about the US activity: https://public-assets.graphika.com/reports/graphika_stanford_internet_observatory_report_unheard_voice.pdf https://public-assets.graphika.com/reports/graphika_stanford...
> Our joint investigation found an interconnected web of accounts on Twitter,
Facebook, Instagram, and five other social media platforms that used deceptive
tactics to promote pro-Western narratives in the Middle East and Central Asia.
The platforms’ datasets appear to cover a series of covert campaigns over a
period of almost five years rather than one homogeneous operation.
> These campaigns consistently advanced narratives promoting the interests of
the United States and its allies while opposing countries including Russia, China,
and Iran. The accounts heavily criticized Russia in particular for the deaths of
innocent civilians and other atrocities its soldiers committed in pursuit of the
Kremlin’s “imperial ambitions” following its invasion of Ukraine in February this
year. To promote this and other narratives, the accounts sometimes shared news
articles from U.S. government-funded media outlets, such as Voice of America
and Radio Free Europe, and links to websites sponsored by the U.S. military. A
portion of the activity also promoted anti-extremism messaging.
> ... At the same time, Twitter and Meta’s data reveals the limited range of tactics IO
actors employ; the covert campaigns detailed in this report are notable for how
similar they are to previous operations we have studied. The assets identified
by Twitter and Meta created fake personas with GAN-generated faces, posed as
independent media outlets, leveraged memes and short-form videos, attempted
to start hashtag campaigns, and launched online petitions: all tactics observed
in past operations by other actors.
> Importantly, the data also shows the limitations of using inauthentic tactics to
generate engagement and build influence online. The vast majority of posts and
tweets we reviewed received no more than a handful of likes or retweets, and
only 19% of the covert assets we identified had more than 1,000 followers. The
average tweet received 0.49 likes and 0.02 retweets. Tellingly, the two mostfollowed assets in the data provided by Twitter were overt accounts that publicly
declared a connection to the U.S. military.
- kjkjadksj 4y agoI don’t understand how the us military hasnt trained a model on engaging posts yet. With the amount of compute they probably have to throw at this you’d think they would have a sausage factory thats at least as good as your average reddit karma whore.
- hzay 4y agoThey probably have. They probably didn't get picked up by the "inauthentic" behavior spotters because they look authentic.
- dividedbyzero 4y agoDoes the US military have the power to suppress this kind of thing? Like, if they did get picked up, can they ensure that gets silently dropped?
- bawolff 4y ago> To promote this and other narratives, the accounts sometimes shared news articles from U.S. government-funded media outlets, such as Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, and links to websites sponsored by the U.S. military. This feels a bit shoddy for us gov. Its not like there is a shortage of sources saying russia is evil. I would have assumed that the us military would put more effort into appearing neutral in their secret propaganda campaign instead of being so obvious.