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After being fired via Facebook this month, a knowledge scientist launched a 6,600-word memorandum to the company’s internal communication systems describing 2. 5 years of its reports with the “fake project team. “The resulting stories, largely focused on sophisticated disinformation campaigns and transparent links to officials and political parties around the world, were shared with BuzzFeed News and reprinted Monday with editorials, which led reporters to describe the memorandum as “a damning account of Facebook’s failures. “
Former Facebook knowledge scientist Sophie Zhang highlighted activity around the world in countries such as Azerbaijan, Honduras, India, Ukraine, Spain, Bolivia and Ecuador. Some of those stories come with measurements for the number of fake accounts that Zhang has purged, with one story in particular about the possible spread of incorrect COVID-19 information to US users, connected to a network of 672,000 accounts in Spain.
The silo Zhang would have operated on, without institutional support, was probably more heinous than the figures for determining whether certain networks of accounts were moderate. “Individually, the effect on was probably small for everyone. [country], however, the global is a vast place,” Zhang wrote in his memorandum. “Although I made the most productive resolution, I can rely on the wisdom that was had at the time, in the end it was I who made the resolution not to press more or prioritize more in each case, and I know that now I have blood on my hands. “
Part of this problem, Zhang explained, arose from domestic tension to focus on security considerations that might merit Western media policy such as the New York Times and the Washington Post. “That’s why I’ve noticed that the increase in priorities soars when others start threatening to talk to the press, and why a leader of my organization has told me through a leader of my organization that my civic paintings haven’t had any effect under the foundation that if the problems were important , would have attracted attention, become a press fireplace and would have convinced the company to devote more attention to space,” Zhang wrote.
BuzzFeed News cites Zhang’s example: in February 2019, a NATO researcher informed Facebook of an obvious Russian interference in US policy, which Zhang resolved before the complainant took action. his promise to report it to the United States Congress. Noting that the factor was only resolved temporarily, the same NATO staff member recounted the return of this same unnautnical behavior, retained it for months, and then sent it to the press, “finally causing the PR to get on the line,” Zhang wrote.
Rent-a-troll: researchers confront farmers of misinformation that oppose others who charge Internet devices and knowledge plans to citizens of upcoming countries. . . with the drawback that Facebook has a “zero rating” in terms of knowledge limits.
Zhang faces the challenge of unresolved challenges with politicians and governments dealing with large-scale interference in the dissemination of data on Facebook; however, it does not remind its former Facebook colleagues in the memorandum that such interference may be aggravated by the fact that users in countries have even less access to news content outside the doors of Facebook and its partners. Nearly 9, those same nations, according to Zhang’s memorandum, are less attractive to Facebook’s public relations technique than “non-authentic” user management.
BuzzFeed News compared to political forces and government workers in Zhang’s memorandum to the Internet Research Agency, a Russian disinformation organization that ruled Infosec’s headlines in 2017. In Azerbaijan, “millions of comments” were created through an obvious staff of “workers dedicated” to opposition prospects in each and every corner of Facebook. As Katy Pearce told BuzzFeed, a researcher at the University of Washington:
One of the wonderful teams of authoritarian regimes is to humiliate opposition in the public brain so that it is not noticed as a credible or valid alternative. Why would I post something if I know I’m going to deal with thousands or many of the comments you’re going to address?
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