Researchers Say They've Uncovered a Massive Facebook Bot Farm From the 2020 Election

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

A group of security researchers say they’ve unmasked a massive bot farm that aimed to shape public opinion on Facebook during the heat of the 2020 presidential election.

According to Paul Bischoff of Comparitech, a British cybersecurity company, the network includes 13,775 unique Facebook accounts that each posted roughly 15 times per month, for an output of more than 50,000 posts a week. The accounts appear to have been used for “political manipulation,” Bischoff says, with roughly half the posts being related to political topics and another 17 percent related to COVID-19. Each account has a profile photo and friends list—likely consisting of other bots, the researchers suggest—and they’ve joined “specific Facebook groups where their posts are more likely to be seen and discussed by legitimate users.”



The most-used keyword in the posts was “Trump,” the researchers found, followed by “Biden.” The accounts date back at least as far as October 2020, and, in addition to posts discussing specific events in the 2020 US presidential elections, were also active around the California wildfires, protests in Belarus, and US border issues. The researchers were able to determine that the fake accounts were created and controlled using Selenium, software designed to automate web application testing, but that can also be used to mimic human behavior in ways that could be difficult for automated bot detection software to spot.

According to a Comparitech spokesperson, Facebook did not respond to Bob Diachenko, an independent cybersecurity expert who helped lead the research, when he attempted to bring the teams’s findings to the platform’s attention. A Facebook representative said the company would look into a sample of the accounts identified by Comparitech, but declined further comment.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/05/facebook-bot-farm/

[PortTack]

1. Damned social media...no wonder this country is divided

[Faux pas]

2. Kickin' with disgust!

[Moostache]

3. My ire is more against people who refuse to THINK than Facebook et. al.

If you are getting your news and vital information directly from Facebook and accepting it uncritically and unquestioningly, you are not just part of the problem, you ARE the problem!

The answer here is not to muzzle Facebook or have the government direct the speech accepted on it. The answer is to get people to stop being so credulous and stupid at the same time.

Cigarettes all carry a warning label.
Logging into Facebook should carry a similar label:

WARNING: Facebook is an unregulated collection of OPINIONS. It is largely NOT adequately fact checked or sourced at all; and it is therefore an unreliable source of vital information and NOT journalism in any sense of the word. This platform and its owners refuse to take care in what pollutes the public square and as such, you should NEVER believe anything published here unquestioningly. EVER. If you cannot understand this, you ARE the problem in America today.

[TheRickles]

15. Excellent point!

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

18. Facebook for me is a way to keep in touch with those I don't see very often

I take most of the news I see there with a grain of salt.

[certainot]

37. facebook, like twitter and fox, are part of the free speech spectrum. rw radio should not be

but it mistakenly is. a random sampling of limbaugh shows showed "trump" used nearly every minute 3 hours/day. all positive, while the "bidens" would all be negative. trump wasn't a branding genius - putin and limmbaugh were.

social media isn't the problem - the rw radio monopoly is but the analysts read and watch and have no clue - which is why we're in this mess.

facebook just piggybacks rw radio. best cheapest thing facebook could do is use all that AI to digitize talk radio and make searching for trolls a lot easier

[PatSeg]

39. I agree

Though there are plenty of reasons to be critical of Facebook, in the end it is how people use it. It shouldn't be a replacement for reading your daily newspaper in the morning or watching the nightly news (legitimate news of course).

I stay in touch with friends and family who are all over the country and have found people I'd lost touch with years ago. It serves me well in that capacity. We share photos and updates about our lives. Some people, including myself, are more isolated due to circumstances, age, or health. Being able to interact with other people is very beneficial.

We have so many excellent sources for news, politics, and commentary, there is no excuse for relying on Facebook - it was never intended to be anything other than a SOCIAL platform. Well, that and a marketing tool that sells individuals' information. That part needs more regulation, but apparently we cannot regulate people's stupidity, ignorance, and laziness.

So blame social media where it is appropriate, but we cannot blame them for how people use or misuse their platform.

[abqtommy]

4. There are many links in this chain of manipulation and we need to destroy them all.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

12. Edward Bernays

Let a curse upon humanity with his invention of public relations ,or how to manipulate consent and control people via manipulation.

I curse his grave.

And I hate all the so called elite motherfuckers and companies who use his techiques and refine them.

[GoneOffShore]

32. Douglas Adams anticipated Facebook in a slightly different way, when he postulated The Babel Fish

“Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.”

The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy

[smirkymonkey]

5. K&R

[Blue Owl]

6. Fuck Fuckkkerberg

They need to stick a fork in that fuck and his white-supremacy-enabling platform

[dalton99a]

7. "Many used "mail[.]ru" accounts seemingly originating in Russia"

[LiberalFighter]

8. I wonder if they were involved in Brexit.

[ashredux]

9. You can bet the "farm" they were...

[mjvpi]

30. Good one

[yardwork]

22. I think that's been proven.

[gratuitous]

10. I've noticed that

Quite often in a political thread there will be a post from someone you wouldn't think would be frequenting a liberal Facebook redoubt. You click through to their profile, and there's no history, a paucity of photos, and no posts going back years. I often reply to those comments, pointing out yet another remarkable instance of a previously moribund Facebook profile suddenly whirring to life to present the dumbass perspective on this or that issue. Then I report their profile to the powers that be.

Sometimes it works.

[DiamondShark]

27. Beep boop.

Thank you for calling out real bots. But those of us that refrain from posting because of being called a bot for "low post count" or "erratic posting behavior" yeah, well, I am getting sick and tired of being called a bot.

Please understand that there is a real person, with real feeling behind this account. And to remember being called names hurts.

[turbinetree]

11. Facebook...

I really dislike Facebook.........

[LudwigPastorius]

35. Yeah, too bad everyone was so willing to give up the integrity of our democracy...

just so they could see pictures of Cousin Earle's new baby.

[SergeStorms]

13. Fuck Facebook and the guy who created it.

It will be the cause of society's demise.

[BigmanPigman]

14. We need the Dems to do something about this ASAP!!!

Fuck Fakebook! They are a private company and any free speech BS they claim is invalid as a private company. I heard this on CNN over the weekend.

[reACTIONary]

20. Um, no....

... As any company or organization, they do indeed have free speech rights.

Just as the company that publishes the Washington Post does. Just as the company that runs DU does.

And so do all of their members - like, for instance, me.

[Hekate]

16. Damn damn damn

[2Gingersnaps]

17. FOX has been at for what, 35 years now?

What has been done to neuter that obvious cancer? FB is just a little more devious in it's approach.

[bucolic_frolic]

19. IMO Facebook should be split up into a billion pieces so every user can have their fair share

[BobTheSubgenius]

21. Are you surprised by this information?

If so, that is another reason to tell you that you are part of the problem. I'm sorry, but you are just uninformed and unaware.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

24. Word of advice genius

You don't convince anyone of anything by insulting them.

Ignored.

[Pepsidog]

23. All I can say is I hope Dems have bigger bot farms.

[Johonny]

26. I've come to assume most of the "people" you're arguing with on social media

are bots. I've gone to just blocking people on Facebook and Twitter. They're not real, and not worth seeing again.

[The Unmitigated Gall]

28. Social media has been a disaster.

A door for enemies to just walk right in and set the house on fire.

[FakeNoose]

38. Yes and Facebook was/is helping them do it

If Facebook can't act like responsible adults, they need to be regulated right out of business.

[BumRushDaShow]

29. I wouldn't be surprised if much of this came from the remains of the Cambridge Analytica fiasco

https://chatbotsmagazine.com/cambridge-analytica-facebook-and-chatbots-sign-of-an-end-or-a-start-349b7d458d03

[SYFROYH]

31. Attempts to manipulate through social media are here to stay.

I mean, I still get an incredible amount of deceitful mailers in the physical mail where one would think it would be easy to stop them.

[Beaverhausen]

33. The official White House page is overrun by bots

it's so obvious. They tear down every post.

Fortunately there is also a President Joe Biden page that so far doesn't seem to have been found by the bots and is more friends.

[LudwigPastorius]

34. "While many (of the phony accounts) used "mail.ru", seemingly originating in Russia,...

the researchers did not allege who was behind the bot farm, or who controlled the unsecured server."

Narrator's Voice: "It was Russia."

[lpbk2713]

36. "M-kay. Yeah, we'll look into it."

(Yawn)