** First off, I'm aware this topic has a strong political side to it and being aware at that risk it is NOT my intention to turn this into a turf war. I acknowledge propaganda isn't one sided. This post is about US companies, not about the geopolitical situation. Please stay civil in the comments. **<p>I opened Twitter today and I was just shocked.<p>In my western EU democracy, I woke up to the trends in all of social media looking like the discourse is completely dominated by an actor that represents the absolute opposite of any respected media source or any of my peers.<p>Investigating those posts and accounts, all of which try to sow doubt in the media and general disinformation, just all of it is fishy. The people aren't real. The network is shallow and unconnected. There are strange typos. The accounts posted meaningless fluff before and "woke up" to spew out carefully crafted psychological warfare.<p>It just seems so completely obvious to me that this is a carefully orchestrated attack on public discourse and I feel weird that just nobody seems to speak up about this.<p>And it is Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and others fueling this with the social proof of their brands by letting this happen.<p>I'm all for free speech by real people, but after all we've learned over the past years, how come that in 2022 social networks silently stay behind this with their brand? Where are the employees speaking up? Where are the executives hiding?<p>I am just so shocked and I didn't know where else to bring my frustration.
As long as propaganda causes people to "engage" with the platform and watch ads, why change anything? The propaganda accounts also contribute towards engagement numbers so it's a win-win situation for them.
For what it’s worth, you can get minute-by-minute updates on the conflict in Ukraine in Telegram, for example this channel (1). It’s all in Russian or Ukrainian.<p>1: <a href="https://t.me/uniannet" rel="nofollow">https://t.me/uniannet</a>
I have no knowledge in this field but why not try opening new accounts and see if anything changes? Someone with your logins could have messed with it? Maybe it’s linked to your IP or phone ad ID?
We only have ourselves to blame for this.<p>Of course there is an information attack on social media right now.<p>The countries on Russia's side in all this are smart enough to see the value and ease in doing this while we are just oblivious. We are so helplessly addicted to social media that IMO we are willfully oblivious. It is comical to think about at this very moment there are thousands of people pissed off but also highly engaged with the opinions of bots.<p>When part of the business model is based on optimal engagement I don't know what you expect the companies to do. This is a feature from their perspective.
> In my western EU democracy<p>Oh boy, where to start? More and more people around you are starting to realize that actual democracy has never existed, you’re a bit late to the party.<p>> The people aren’t real<p>You really think so? Excluding the really obvious ones with suspicious IDs and very shallow posts, I think most of the accounts that you’re dismissing as “fake” because it offends you, are absolutely “real”. First understand that one can spew out propaganda even without being contracted by state actors, many people are very passionate about their brand of politics and would do it even without any compensation. Secondly the increase in doubts with the mainstream narratives of mass media isn’t caused by just plain ignorance, but rather erosion of trust with governments and institutions within the populace. Without trust, nothing can be believed.<p>> The network is shallow and unconnected<p>Because most accounts on the Internet actually are shallow and unconnected, alienated in the virtual world as well as in the real world. The ones with many “organic” followers and friends are the exception than the rule!<p>> how come that in 2022 social networks silently stay behind this with their brand? Where are the employees speaking up? Where are the executives hiding?<p>Because in spite of Western governments’ efforts to curb “hate speech” and “disinformation”, their algorithms cannot simply analyze and understand the political nuance of millions of posts and comments that are generated hour by hour (thankfully). Maybe some keywords get filtered and some death threats get processed, but you’re expecting too much. Most of the employees in Silicon Valley are there to earn money and live a comfortable life, why should they even speak up about a problem that’s fundamentally impossible to solve (both technologically and politically)?
This is why algorithms, filter bubbles and “AI” in its current state is a very very bad thing. It can be gamed as evidenced. The complicity of the platforms is beyond me, why aren’t they DOING something about it? Don’t expect anything from TikTok though - it’s a chinese company and no doubt that some user information and user behaviour information is being exfiltrated to the CCP. Also their filter bubble is tuned for soft power and show CCP in a good light which is despicable. Don’t even register on that platform! Twitter for example, lacks any incentive to do something about it since any user growth is a good thing in their view but detrimental to the platform as a whole. Misinformation and state-sponsored mass networks of fake users is the norm these days and it’s sad.