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Craig Silverman

@CraigSilverman

Mar 8

NEW: Over a dozen Russian-language videos spreading on social media claim to debunk Ukrainian disinfo.

But they’re actually part of a disturbing campaign that spreads disinformation by disguising it as fact-checking.

A story & 🧵on debunks-as-disinfo: propublica.org/article/in-the…

Here’s a viral tweet with a video claiming to expose Ukrainian disinfo that had mislabeled a military vehicle as Russian. The video also spread widely on Telegram. But it’s nearly impossible to find an example of the supposed Ukrainian fake being shared anywhere.

Here’s another example from a Russian government account. And another where an official with the pro-Russian separatist Donetsk People’s Republic claims to show “How Ukrainian fakes are made.” Good luck finding these supposed “Ukrainian fakes.”

Read 13 tweets

Craig Silverman

@CraigSilverman

Jan 4

Our new ProPublica/Wash Post investigation reveals public Facebook groups swelled with at least 650,000 posts attacking the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s victory between Election Day and Jan. 6, with many calling for executions or other political violence. 🧵
propublica.org/article/facebo…

Through interviews, data & internal docs, we reveal how FB/Meta relaxed its oversight of groups after election day, and belatedly rushed to try and police them once the Capitol attack was underway.

But by then, groups had become a hotbed of election misinfo and threats.

The seeds of groups dysfunction were planted when Zuckerberg made them a priority in 2017. Groups became more central to FB’s bottom line, but enforcement efforts were weak, inconsistent and heavily reliant on the work of unpaid group admins.

Read 11 tweets

Craig Silverman

@CraigSilverman

Oct 4, 2021

The Ozy Media meltdown has a lot of lessons. As the reporter who caught them buying junk traffic in 2017, I'm biased. But I see it as a perfect, cautionary illustration of Paid versus Earned media. So: a 🧵 on why Ozy failed as a paid media company — and why it matters.

Definitions:

PAID media is advertising. Spend money to get an audience. In today's world that could be display ads, FB ads ppl click on, YouTube ads for your video.

EARNED media is when people choose to watch/read/listen to your content or the media chooses to cover you.

Ozy's strategy has been to buy audience, influence and the trappings of success. It appears to have worked until money from investors started to dry up. Ozy's problem is that all its paid media never turned into earned media aka real audience success. So they had to keep buying.

Read 32 tweets

Craig Silverman

@CraigSilverman

Sep 22, 2021

NEW: FB Marketplace has 1 billion users and is one of the company’s most promising sources of $$. But growth comes at a cost: our investigation reveals how FB fails to protect buyers and sellers from scam listings, fake accounts & violent crime. Thread... propublica.org/article/facebo…

Internal documents, interviews with Marketplace workers, and law enforcement records show how the product has become a favorite of cybercriminals who come from around the world to find victims. There’s a staggering array of scams being perpetrated on Marketplace:

Facebook says Marketplace “lets you see what real people in your own community are selling,” and that viewing a profile is a great way to see who you’re dealing with. But workers say hacked and fake accounts are a huge issue, and are used by fraudsters to rip off people at scale

Read 17 tweets

Craig Silverman

@CraigSilverman

Sep 14, 2021

The WSJ's revelation of internal reports that showed the harm of Facebook's VIP profile program and the negative effect of Instagram on teens reveal a core truth about FB: people inside the company document and articulate the problems but they really struggle to affect change

What we can read of these reports shows the quality of work done internally to try and quantify harm and issues. Yes, insiders are the only ones with access to data to do this work. But ppl at FB take these challenges on because they care and want to see the company do better

@RMac18

@RMac18 and I saw this time and again last year in internal threads and reports. Lots of ppl at FB want to fix this stuff. So they put in the work to make the case internally. The problem is they end up hitting a wall when fixes conflict with growth/revenue/public image

Read 8 tweets

Craig Silverman

@CraigSilverman

Apr 22, 2021

Exclusive: An internal report reveals how Facebook failed to prevent the "Stop the Steal" movement from using the platform to "spread conspiracy, and help incite the Capitol insurrection.” This new evidence contradicts public statements from Zuck/Sandberg: buzzfeednews.com/article/craigs…

The report shows FB didn't know the "Stop the Steal" movement was building for months before Nov 3. On election day it exploded in a viral FB group that “normalized delegitimization and hate in a way that resulted in offline harm and harm to the norms underpinning democracy.”

The report (“Stop the Steal and Patriot Party: The Growth And Mitigation Of An Adversarial Harmful Movement”) provides yet another case study of how relatively small but coordinated groups of people can wreak havoc and spread misinformation on the world’s dominant social network.

Read 7 tweets

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