Bleeping Computer: Ukraine takes down massive bot farm, seizes 150,000 SIM cards. “The Cyber Police Department of the National Police of Ukraine dismantled another massive bot farm linked to more than 100 individuals after searches at almost two dozen locations. The bots were used to push Russian propaganda justifying Russia’s war in Ukraine, to disseminate illegal content and personal information, and in various other fraudulent activities.”
Tag Archives: astroturfing
Washington Post: Inside a private portal from GOP campaigns to local news sites
Washington Post: Inside a private portal from GOP campaigns to local news sites. “The top Republican campaigns in Illinois used a private online portal last year to request stories and shape coverage in a network of media outlets that present themselves as local newspapers, according to documents and people familiar with the setup.”
Globe and Mail: Google denies it engaged in ‘astroturfing’ to lobby Ottawa through third parties
Globe and Mail: Google denies it engaged in ‘astroturfing’ to lobby Ottawa through third parties . “Google denied accusations in a Commons committee Thursday that it had engaged in ‘astroturfing’ campaigns to lobby against federal bills by paying individuals and other organizations to oppose them.”
Cornell Chronicle: Lawmakers struggle to differentiate AI and human emails
Cornell Chronicle: Lawmakers struggle to differentiate AI and human emails. “A field experiment investigating how the natural language model GPT-3, the predecessor to the most recently released model, might be used to generate constituent email messages showed that legislators were only slightly less likely to respond to AI-generated messages (15.4%) than human-generated (17.3%).”
Press Trust of India: Company Employees With Fake Profiles Created False Praise About Gautam Adani, Says Wikipedia
Press Trust of India: Company Employees With Fake Profiles Created False Praise About Gautam Adani, Says Wikipedia. “For more than a decade, sockpuppets – some of them being company employees – created ‘puffery’ around tycoon Gautam Adani, his family and the apples-to-airport group he helmed by adding non-neutral material and removing warnings from information on Wikipedia, the free internet-based encyclopedia has alleged.”
Rolling Stone: Russian Trolls Made Fake Kid Rock Fan Accounts — and Fooled Donald Trump Jr.
Rolling Stone: Russian Trolls Made Fake Kid Rock Fan Accounts — and Fooled Donald Trump Jr.. “Researchers found Russian-linked fake accounts posing as authentic American conservatives cross-posting content to personas on Truth Social, Gab, and Gettr. While right-wing social platforms like Gab and Parler have previously played host to Russian influence operations, the report marks the first documented case of Russian meddling on Truth Social, the social media app founded by Trump.”
Tobacco Tactics: STOP adds 25 new organisations to its Tobacco Industry Allies database
New-to-me, from Tobacco Tactics: STOP adds 25 new organisations to its Tobacco Industry Allies database. “An investigation carried out by global tobacco industry watchdog STOP [Stopping Tobacco Organizations & Products] has resulted in the addition of 25 new organisations to its Tobacco Industry Allies database. The database, launched in 2019, now includes 135 groups across 33 countries. Each of the allies listed in the database is categorised as ‘Third Party’, ‘Front Group’ or ‘Astroturf’ using the definitions outlined by STOP.”
Kenya election: Deep fakes, propaganda, libel inundate social media (The East African)
The East African: Kenya election: Deep fakes, propaganda, libel inundate social media . “The final stretch of the campaigns has witnessed outright propaganda and manipulated videos and audios online spaces, signalling a rebound of fake news. From fabricated videos made to misrepresent a candidate’s opinion to invented phone calls alleging plans to rig elections and fake statements claiming foreign support for a specific candidate, the ‘deep fakes’ have increased these final two weeks as they seemingly target the less informed.”
‘Golden age’: Marcos myths on Philippine social media (AFP)
AFP: ‘Golden age’: Marcos myths on Philippine social media. “Ferdinand Marcos Junior appears on the cusp of victory in next week’s presidential polls, with his seemingly unassailable lead fuelled by a decades-long misinformation campaign to revamp the family brand. The clan’s comeback from pariahs in exile to the peak of political power has been built on a relentless barrage of fake and misleading posts on social media.”
NBC News: Dozens of fake news websites and social media accounts pushed pro-China talking points
NBC News: Dozens of fake news websites and social media accounts pushed pro-China talking points. “A Chinese marketing firm hosted a ring of at least 72 fake news sites in 11 languages with corresponding fake social media personas that pushed Chinese government talking points, according to research published Thursday.”
Kenya election: The influencers paid to push hashtags (BBC)
BBC: Kenya election: The influencers paid to push hashtags. “Social media influencing is a growing and potentially lucrative business for young people in Kenya and increasingly, politicians come calling…. With the fiercely contested presidential election on 9 August, many fear the system of paid-for influence can lead to manipulation and the spread of harmful narratives.”
Exclusive: Fake Accounts Fueled the ‘Snyder Cut’ Online Army (Rolling Stone)
Rolling Stone: Exclusive: Fake Accounts Fueled the ‘Snyder Cut’ Online Army. “For a time, rival studios and digital marketing executives were intrigued by the SnyderVerse fan mobilization, wondering how they, too, might better harness the power of social media. But soon many came to question what appeared to be suspect activity: Hashtags like #ReleaseTheSnyderCut saturated social media beginning in late 2019, racking up hundreds of thousands of tweets a day to pressure Warner Bros. to release the director’s version of the film.”
Washington Post: Facebook quietly bankrolled small, grassroots groups to fight its battles in Washington
Washington Post: Facebook quietly bankrolled small, grassroots groups to fight its battles in Washington. “Backed by millions from Facebook-parent company Meta, American Edge has launched a full-throated campaign to combat antitrust legislation in Washington, placing op-eds in regional papers throughout the country, commissioning studies, and collaborating with a surprising array of partners, including minority business associations, conservative think tanks, and former national security officials. It’s a political playbook more common to other industries, including pharmaceuticals, tobacco and telecommunications. But tech companies, under heightened scrutiny from federal regulators, are seizing on these methods. (Meta also paid a GOP consulting firm to malign TikTok, The Post reported in March.)”
New York Times: China’s Covid Lockdown Outrage Tests Limits of Triumphant Propaganda
New York Times: China’s Covid Lockdown Outrage Tests Limits of Triumphant Propaganda. “Anger and anxiety over the Shanghai lockdown, now in its fourth week, has posed a rare challenge for China’s powerful propaganda apparatus, which is central to the Communist Party’s ability to stifle dissent. As the Omicron variant continues to spread across the country, officials have defended their use of widespread, heavy-handed lockdowns. They have pushed a triumphalist narrative of their Covid response, which says that only the Chinese government had the will to confront, and hold back, the virus. But among a populace with growing evidence of the costs of that approach, an alternate story — of rage, frustration and despair — is finding an audience.”
Spectrum Local News: Hard-to-trace social media accounts stir up online debate about Maine energy politics
Spectrum Local News: Hard-to-trace social media accounts stir up online debate about Maine energy politics. “A strange phenomenon can be seen in the replies to almost any social media post about the campaign to replace Maine’s investor-owned electric utilities with a consumer-owned nonprofit. In Twitter threads, Facebook pages and comments on local news articles, a group of at least six self-styled ‘real Mainers’ — their profile pictures showing dogs or lighthouses, with bios such as, ‘Just a girl from Maine!’ or ‘Not from away’ — first appeared online in January and have posted almost exclusively about an early-stage energy policy debate that many might find obscure.”