- cross-posted to:
- astroturfing
- cross-posted to:
- astroturfing
When he first emerged on social media, the user known as Harlan claimed to be a New Yorker and an Army veteran who supported Donald Trump for president. Harlan said he was 29, and his profile picture showed a smiling, handsome young man.
A few months later, Harlan underwent a transformation. Now, he claimed to be 31 and from Florida.
New research into Chinese disinformation networks targeting American voters shows Harlan’s claims were as fictitious as his profile picture, which analysts think was created using artificial intelligence.
The account was traced back to Spamouflage, a Chinese disinformation group, by analysts at Graphika, a New York-based firm that tracks online networks. Known to online researchers for several years, Spamouflage earned its moniker through its habit of spreading large amounts of seemingly unrelated content alongside disinformation.
Gotta start regulating social media. “look how many users we have!” metrics are why bot nets are allowed to fester.
I still think the core problem lies with advertising on social media, especially contextual/targeted advertising. What if we prohibited for-profit social media companies?
I was thinking about this recently. Why do people still use social media that has ads or that allows self-promotion? It’s social media, not corporate media. Post stuff because you want to, not because you want to generate a profit.
Or just tell investors to find other KPMs outside of something as easy to fake as active user count and the problem sorts itself out. But also, I agree.
These sites likely prefer fake active users for multiple reasons outside of investor manipulation, including that in normal operation, bot users not running via API will scroll past ads and get a bunch of fake ad viewership they can cash in on.