{"id":118076,"date":"2018-09-10T12:00:01","date_gmt":"2018-09-10T11:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=118076"},"modified":"2018-09-10T12:34:58","modified_gmt":"2018-09-10T11:34:58","slug":"zuckerberg-admits-social-media-is-a-weapon-says-facebook-in-arms-race-against-bad-actors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2018\/09\/zuckerberg-admits-social-media-is-a-weapon-says-facebook-in-arms-race-against-bad-actors\/","title":{"rendered":"Zuckerberg Admits Social Media Is a Weapon, Says Facebook in ‘Arms Race’ against ‘Bad Actors’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

\u00a9 Charles Platiau \/ Reuters<\/p><\/div>\n

6 Sep 2018 – <\/em>If you had any lingering doubt that Facebook has become little more than a vehicle for US government censorship and Western propaganda, a recent Washington Post op-ed<\/a> by Mark Zuckerberg should remove any ambiguity.<\/p>\n

In his short and snappy op-ed, Mark Zuckerberg admits that \u201cprotecting democracy\u201d<\/em> is an \u201carms race\u201d<\/em> and reaffirms Facebook\u2019s commitment to winning. Put another way, Zuckerberg is telling us that social media is a weapon \u2014 \u00a0and that he has picked a side.<\/p>\n

Because, let\u2019s not labor under the false illusion that Facebook cares about democracy everywhere. In Zuckerberg\u2019s world, there are bad guys and good guys \u2014 and he\u2019s relying on the good guys to tell him what\u2019s what.<\/p>\n

The problem is that, coincidentally, the good guys always seem to be tied to Western or Western-aligned governments \u2014 and the bad guys always just happen to be the ones those governments don\u2019t seem to like very much. A conundrum which I\u2019m sure was totally unintentional and which Facebook is no doubt working very hard on figuring out. As he says in the Post, Facebook is working very hard to \u201cimprove its defenses\u201d<\/em> against any kind of unfair or nefarious influence and it has been doing its very best to remove \u201cfake accounts and bad content\u201d<\/em> in recent months.<\/p>\n

The military comparisons (\u201carms race\u201d<\/em> and \u201cimproving our defenses\u201d<\/em>) are perhaps more apt than Zuckerberg even intended, given that for some of this work, he has chosen to partner up with the Atlantic Council, which operates essentially as a soft-power lobbying wing for NATO, campaigning vociferously on behalf of the US-led military organization and championing its wars and \u201cinterventions\u201d<\/em> across the world.<\/p>\n

In a roundabout sort of way, Zuckerberg\u2019s op-ed is unintentionally honest, because a huge amount more can be inferred from what he doesn\u2019t say than what he does say.<\/p>\n

Funnily enough, despite offering a list of actions Facebook has taken against what Zuckerberg calls \u201cbad actors\u201d<\/em> online, the psyops and social media manipulation orchestrated by Western governments \u2014 chiefly, the US, UK and Israeli governments \u2014 don\u2019t get so much as a passing mention in his op-ed. This is odd, given his sincere and deep commitment to combating fake news and misinformation. Clearly, the little democracy fairies that whisper orders in his ear every day must have forgotten to mention them. I mean, let\u2019s give the guy a break. It\u2019s a big responsibility to have the fate of democracy resting on your shoulders.<\/p>\n

But let\u2019s say someone did slip a note onto Zuckerberg\u2019s desk about some really nefarious stuff that\u2019s been going on under his nose for years. What might it say?<\/p>\n

Well, it might mention a 2011 report in the Guardian newspaper which exposed<\/a> that the US government was at that time developing a \u2018sock puppet\u2019 software program, designed by the US military, to \u201cfake online identities\u201d<\/em> for the purpose of influencing online conversations and spreading pro-American propaganda. What\u2019s worse, this wasn\u2019t even really a secret.<\/p>\n

To build its influence campaign, United States Central Command (Centcom) awarded a contract to a California-based company to develop an \u201conline persona management service\u201d<\/em> allowing one serviceperson to control up to ten different fake identities, which the contract stated must have convincing and believable background stories. But don\u2019t worry, CENTCOM said it was all about combating terrorism, that they were not targeting Facebook or Twitter and they were only trying to fool foreigners who speak languages like \u201cArabic, Farsi, Urdu and Pashto\u201d<\/em> \u2014 so, no problem then. I mean, if they say it, it must be true.<\/p>\n

The note to Zuckerberg might also mention that in 2015, the British Army proudly announced it was developing a new brigade to specialize in psychological warfare on social media. The \u201877th Brigade\u2019<\/a> employs social media \u201cwarriors\u201d<\/em> (the Russians have \u201ctrolls\u201d<\/em> and \u201cbots\u201d<\/em> \u2014 but the UK has \u201cwarriors\u201d<\/em>) \u00a0who use \u201cnon-lethal engagement and legitimate non-military levers as a means to adapt behaviours\u201d<\/em> online \u2014 a fairly long-winded way to say: \u201cWe do propaganda.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/RT_com\/status\/1037389899920486401?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1037389899920486401%7Ctwgr%5E373939313b636f6e74726f6c&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fop-ed%2F437727-zuckerberg-oped-arms-race%2F<\/p>\n

It is also known that the British GCHQ and the NSA in the US operate entire programs dedicated to discrediting<\/a> adversaries online through sophisticated disinformation campaigns involving fake emails and blog posts.<\/p>\n

At the beginning of this year, the Israeli Army set up its \u201cCenter for Consciousness Operations\u201d<\/em> which was described<\/a> by Haaretz as \u201ca new ‘soft power’ psychological warfare unit\u201d<\/em>. Of course, this was not Israel\u2019s first attempt at manipulating opinion online. The Israeli Army has previously invested in similar programs, with the government announcing in 2013 that it was willing to pay<\/a> Israeli students to circulate pro-Israeli information online. The IDF is known to be active<\/a> on 30 platforms including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram and operating in six languages. But the centre of \u201cconsciousness operations\u201d<\/em> was part of a new push to \u201cinfluence the enemy and Western opinion over Israel\u2019s military moves\u201d<\/em> through social media and other online platforms.<\/p>\n

Zuckerberg\u2019s mind will be blown when he hears about all this. No doubt he would march straight back to Capitol Hill and demand an immediate explanation.<\/p>\n

Facebook has steadfastly ignored any evidence that these governments are engaged in massive online influence campaigns because they\u2019re the \u2018good\u2019 guys so what they do online doesn\u2019t matter. In fact, it\u2019s worse than that. Facebook not only does not care what these governments do, it actively helps them do it.<\/p>\n

One recent example was the temporary removal<\/a> of the Telesur English page on Facebook without explanation. It just so happens that Telesur is one of the only English-language sources of news on Venezuela that offers a perspective which differs from Washington\u2019s view. A coincidence, surely.<\/p>\n

Read more: Facebook’s anonymous censors take down Latin America’s Telesur, and nothing can stop them <\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Then there\u2019s the fact that Facebook has been deleting the accounts of Palestinian activists at the behest of the Israeli government, as the Intercept reported<\/a> last year. Over one four-month period, Facebook removed 95 percent of the accounts that Tel Aviv demanded to be taken down. It\u2019s important to note that \u201cdemanded\u201d<\/em> is the correct word here, given that Israel threatened Facebook with new laws which would have forced them to comply with deletion orders if they did not do so voluntarily.<\/p>\n

In his op-ed, Zuckerberg claims (correctly) that social media platforms like Facebook are targeted by \u201csophisticated, well-funded adversaries\u201d<\/em> who are getting smarter about covering their tracks. But he simply can\u2019t be taken seriously while ignoring the clear evidence that the very governments and \u2018fact checkers\u2019 he is so keen to work with to \u2018combat\u2019 disinformation are knee-deep in this exact activity.<\/p>\n

In reality, we can’t expect Zuckerberg to start caring about any of this. During a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Wednesday, Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg all but confirmed that Facebook willingly acts on behalf of the US government when she assured senators that the platform would never take action to favor a “hostile foreign power\u201d<\/em> over the US or its military.<\/p>\n

But Facebook executives are one thing and the media is another. While Western journalists have sought to wrangle as many headlines as possible out of stories about \u201cRussian meddling\u201d<\/em> online, they have shown curiously little interest in online propaganda campaigns run by their own governments.<\/p>\n

_____________________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Danielle Ryan is an Irish freelance writer based in Dublin. Her work has appeared in <\/em>Salon, The Nation, Rethinking Russia, teleSUR, RBTH, The Calvert Journal and others.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 rt.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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