Thread by @ExploitingNiche

I’ve been keeping tabs on foreign impostor Native accounts on FB since 2016 on my page Exploiting the Niche. I wrote about the Ricky Hamilton photoshop insult in April 2017.
exploitingtheniche.wordpress.com/2017/04/27/tee…
If Twitter users missed out on these- I’ll make a thread of some notable ones.

This page has been removed by Facebook (the owner still active with other pages) This audience mining petition they ran is still up on Actionsprout using plagiarized text of the real Dave Archambault II’s petition from a different petition site.
actionsprout.io/CF68E2?source=…

To compare: this is the link to the authentic petition.
petitions.moveon.org/sign/no-dapl.f…
This raises the question- when a system is mining FB audience info to help non-profits reach them. What happens when they turn out to be a bad guy? Are the signers informed?

Freebooting an ABC 20/20 video in 2016- this teeshirt marketer boldly claims that shirt sales will directly help the family.

The frenzy to capitalize on Standing Rock support money was really very crazy. Fake pages ran darkpost ads for clothes with stolen designs before @Facebook had started the ad transparency.
Detailed in this @CraigSilverman article:
buzzfeednews.com/article/craigs…

Along with stealing designs- Standing Rock provided current news and compelling photos that could be stolen and republished on monetized websites. The stolen stories typically outperformed the originals amplified with cheating tactics.
exploitingtheniche.wordpress.com/2017/03/17/cli…

When they weren’t stealing real news, sometimes they stole fake news.
Link to my FB post and details in comments (back before I knew to record the full page url and not just the name)
facebook.com/ExploitingTheN…

At about this time, in early 2017, FB was really doing alot with instant articles, so there is a conflict of interest with the ad revenue the traffic baiting players generate.
facebook.com/ExploitingTheN…

Along with profiting off other people’s ads served in instant article format, FB profits off the ads the impostors purchase to sell their pirated products.
This article tells the story behind this iconic photo that an impostor stole and printed smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-in…

They don’t just steal photos, they also steal videos... like... all those wildlife videos they bait up with “Stop and share around the world, post where you are from...”... they will even steal a parent’s personal video with their sick child.

A year ago @AlKapDC published this story for Media Matters about this fake Native page situation on FB. Amazingly, his story was promptly stolen by an impostor Page and then monetized through FB’s instant articles.

mediamatters.org/blog/2018/01/3…

I’m still reeling with the gall they had when they recycled the news of a beloved actor’s death... twice.
facebook.com/25031766874253…

.@AlKapDC also wrote this article about a *FAKE* Standing Rock Indian Reservation page that was verified by Facebook and run out of Macedonia.
mediamatters.org/blog/2018/05/0…

Remember that check-in at Standing Rock action? Even when it happened, it was questioned who initiated it. A lot of people who checked in- did it through that Macedonian page. (It’s gone now- although the people who ran it still have at least 1 FB page)
theatlantic.com/technology/arc…

This link comes with a very strong
*gross and graphic content warning*
This is what happens when a clickbaiter appropriates someone else’s culture and then decides that maybe zit-popping would do better.

facebook.com/proudNativeame…

Lots of pages have changed their name but this one is extra -

Strolling down memory lane of engagement tactics... do you remember the tiled format where the top tile was a plain photo and the bottom one was a fake video still image with floaty stuff? Here we have birthday-bait. Of the worst kind. More on that.

This one has no photo. I couldn’t make a post about it. Sometimes when I try to verify something I find out more. The photographer told me that the woman in the birthday-bait meme made with the stolen photo was a dear friend, and she had passed away. She was so hurt.

On that note, this beautiful @Supamanhiphop video: three true artists... happens to have lost millions of views to the freebooting of the impostors. Please name, link, and amplify creative people who invest the time and vision in making something special.