1/ Today we published our first Inauthentic Behavior (IB) report. This report details how we tackle various forms of IB and offers some examples of recent enforcements to illustrate notable trends and tactics we’ve seen _about.fb.com/news/2020/10/i…
2/ For 3+ yrs we’ve publicly reported our removals of CIB networks. These are like the APTs of #IO. But deceptive tactics are not limited to CIB — spammers and scammers often rely on similar behaviors. We tackle both threats, but we tackle them differently.
3/ CIB actors tend to be unrepentant deceivers — if you’re running a network of fake accounts, you know you’re being misleading. IB violators want to push the boundaries, but may not intend to break the rules.
4/ That’s why we warn or temporarily restrict first in all but the most egregious IB cases — and we’ve found that many adjust their behavior in response.
5/ In 2019, we updated our policy against Inauthentic Behavior that guides how we enforce against the more prolific, less sophisticated, and often financially motivated scammers and fraudsters. This builds on our long-running anti-spam work. facebook.com/communitystand…
6/ Today’s IB report is intended to bring public awareness to these types of enforcements, and reinforce that not all deception is CIB. Here is a deep dive into the key trends: reuters.com/article/techno…
7/ Thoughtful questions here from @evelyndouek — this type of debate (and the clarity it helps drive) is exactly why we released this report today!
1/ Today we announced 10 CIB takedowns, including 6 networks we removed during the month of September, and 4 that we removed as recently as this morning. We had already announced most of the Sept networks. about.fb.com/news/2020/10/r…
2/More than half of these 10 networks targeted domestic audiences in their countries and many of them were linked to groups and people linked to politically affiliated actors in each country — the US, Myanmar, Russia, Nigeria, The Philippines and Azerbaijan.
3/ Half of the takedowns in this report began based on our own internal investigations, and the other half are based on information published/shared by external groups, including the FBI and investigative reporters.
1/ Today we announced three CIB takedowns linked to Russian actors — all three had very limited global following, and even more minimal following in the US. But we know that networks like these can pivot in the the weeks to come, so we’ll stay vigilant. about.fb.com/news/2020/09/r…
2/ These networks centered primarily around off-platform websites designed to look like independent or fictitious media organizations and attempted to engage unwitting people to write for them. This is similar to a Russian network we removed in August. about.fb.com/news/2020/09/a…
3/ This is a good reminder that threat actors — including from Russia — will continue to try to manipulate public debate globally and in the US, including by trying to trick journalists into doing their amplification for them.
1/ There’s been an important debate today about an online campaign to inflate ticket sales at the Tulsa rally, and whether this constitutes deceptive behavior (cc @persily@evelyndouek). Based on public reporting, this isn’t CIB as we define it. #threadnytimes.com/2020/06/21/sty…
2/ First off, it’s critical to analyze this based on the behavior, not the content. However one might feel about the intent here, what was the behavior this campaign engaged in, and is that harmfully deceptive or simply coordinated?
3/ Second, I’m going to address this from a platform perspective. For FB, the key question would be: did the people behind it engage in on-platform behavior that systemically deceived users?
1/ Today we published our 3rd monthly CIB report: we removed 8 networks for coordinated inauthentic behavior in April. about.fb.com/news/2020/05/a…
2/ Six of the eight networks were domestic and targeted audiences in their own countries — in the US, Georgia, Myanmar and Mauritania.
3/ Two of them were foreign and targeted audiences outside of their countries: We linked one to individuals in Russia, Crimea and the Donbass regions of Ukraine and two media firms in Crimea; another was linked to the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting Corporation.
@DavidClinchNews@alexstamos Some rapid response systems exist and more could be built, but the broader point here is that for any sufficiently complex system, most unanticipated outcomes look strategic (complexity means observers infer intention), but many/most are actually the result of systemic entropy.
@DavidClinchNews@alexstamos Put another way: if something strange happens in a complex system, people often infer intent (it’s so sophisticated — they must have meant this to happen!), but often it’s an unintended result of the complexity itself. And this mismatch gets stronger for more complex systems.
@DavidClinchNews@alexstamos It’s almost a strange reformulation of the entropy in Murphy’s law: the more complex a system, the more opportunity for unintended consequences, AND the more likely observers will perceive those consequences as intentional.
Good piece analyzing a recent Russian influence operation targeting Madagascar. The operation is linked to online assets we removed (and Stanford analyzed and helped expose) several weeks ago, but it's broader than that, and rife with incompetence. /thread nytimes.com/2019/11/11/wor…