{"id":885,"date":"2021-11-20T09:53:38","date_gmt":"2021-11-20T08:53:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/2021\/11\/20\/fake-facebook-accounts-boost-campaign-opposing-u-s-consulate-in-jerusalem-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2021-11-20T09:53:38","modified_gmt":"2021-11-20T08:53:38","slug":"fake-facebook-accounts-boost-campaign-opposing-u-s-consulate-in-jerusalem-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/2021\/11\/20\/fake-facebook-accounts-boost-campaign-opposing-u-s-consulate-in-jerusalem-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Fake Facebook accounts boost campaign opposing U.S. consulate in Jerusalem &#8211; NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"cfbc967f0983488262956e73eca9483a\" data-index=\"1\" style=\"float: none; margin:10px 0 10px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3859091246952232\" crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- blok -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3859091246952232\" data-ad-slot=\"1334354390\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\r\n\n<\/div>\n<p>Sections<br \/>tv<br \/>Featured<br \/>More From NBC<br \/>Follow NBC News<br \/>A leading Israeli politician\u2019s lobbying campaign against reopening a U.S. consulate for Palestinians in East Jerusalem has been amplified on Facebook by a network of fake accounts, according to research shared with NBC News.<br \/>The politician, former Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, a challenger to replace Benjamin Netanyahu as the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/israel-news\/politics-and-diplomacy\/likud-mks-try-to-stop-nir-barkat-in-leadership-race-681591\">leader\u00a0of Israel\u2019s opposition party<\/a>, Likud, has spent time in Washington in recent months lobbying lawmakers not to reopen <a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/world\/la-fg-israel-us-consulate-20190304-story.html\">the consulate, which former President Donald Trump closed in 2019<\/a> after his administration <a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/nation\/la-na-pol-trump-jerusalem-20171206-story.html\">recognized Jerusalem as Israel\u2019s capital<\/a>. <br \/>The office provided consular services to Palestinian residents in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. President Joe Biden pledged when he took office <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/world\/biden-promised-reopen-jerusalem-consulate-trump-closed-can-rcna4539\">to reopen the consulate and use it to rebuild diplomatic ties with Palestinians<\/a>.\u00a0<br \/>Since August, Barkat\u2019s Facebook posts about the issue, including photos of Barkat with members of Congress, such as Sens. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/nir.barkat\/posts\/4145466025559320\">Ted Cruz<\/a>, R-Texas, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/nir.barkat\/posts\/4153171498122106\">Lindsey Graham<\/a>, R-S.C., and House Minority Leader <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/nir.barkat\/posts\/4270194673086454\">Kevin McCarthy<\/a>, R-Calif., have been shared\u00a0by a network of at least 320 accounts determined to be fake by the Israeli disinformation research company <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fakereporter.net\/info\">FakeReporter<\/a>. The researchers said such fake engagement can shape public perception of a politician\u2019s popularity and game Facebook\u2019s news feed algorithm so posts reach much larger audiences than they would organically.<br \/>They said the research highlights Facebook\u2019s failure to effectively crack down on inauthentic networks that amplify political campaigns.<br \/>\u201cWe believe that this work is critical to our life as citizens and to democracy,\u201d said Achiya Schatz, the executive director of FakeReporter. \u201cIt\u2019s frustrating that companies like Facebook, which have so much power over democracies, are not doing more to defend us and keep the spaces they have created safe. It is not good enough.\u201d<br \/>Schatz said his team suspects, based on the complexity of the behavior of the profiles, that the network is made up of so-called sock puppet accounts, which are controlled and deployed centrally by humans, most likely working for a digital agency that lets customers pay to boost their digital popularity, rather than fully automated bots.\u00a0<br \/>The offices of Cruz, McCarthy and Graham did not respond to requests for comment.<br \/>Facebook <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/congress\/facebook-whistleblower-tell-congress-social-network-accountable-no-one-n1280786\">faces increasing scrutiny from members of Congress<\/a> after a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/tech\/tech-news\/facebook-whistleblower-documents-detail-deep-look-facebook-rcna3580\">substantial leak of internal posts and documents<\/a> was released to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/the-facebook-files-11631713039\">The Wall Street Journal<\/a> and a consortium of media organizations, as well as to Congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission. The documents, released by Frances Haugen, a whistleblower and former Facebook employee, have shown how Facebook has struggled to police its platform for harmful content.\u00a0<br \/>Margarita Franklin, a spokesperson for Meta, Facebook\u2019s parent company, stressed that the company has made efforts to address inauthentic behavior on the platform.<br \/>\u201cWe removed the majority of these accounts for fake likes and shares,\u201d Franklin said, referring to the network identified by FakeReporter, which NBC News shared with Facebook. \u201cWe go after a range of inauthentic activities facing our entire industry \u2014 from fake engagement to sophisticated influence operations.\u201d<br \/>She said it can be difficult, if not impossible, to prove whether the beneficiary of such fake engagement \u2014 in this case Barkat \u2014 was the one paying for it, because the transaction would have taken place outside Facebook\u2019s platform.\u00a0<br \/>Since the accounts FakeReporter has determined to be inauthentic started promoting Barkat\u2019s posts by sharing and liking them, the average number of monthly shares on his Facebook posts have increased from 111 to 675 compared to his posts over the previous three years. That, the researchers say, creates a false impression of political support in Israel for his lobbying activities.\u00a0<br \/>Among the posts FakeReporter researchers believe to have been artificially amplified by the network is a photo of Barkat <a href=\"https:\/\/www.israelnationalnews.com\/News\/News.aspx\/313938\">shaking Cruz\u2019s hand at a meeting in September<\/a>. In the caption, Barkat said he discussed the \u201cdanger of establishing a Palestinian consulate in Jerusalem.\u201d The post was shared more than 1,200 times, but because of user and group privacy settings on Facebook, researchers could see only a small fraction of the shares. FakeReporter manually reviewed 150 of the shares and found them all to be from accounts it determined to be part of the network.\u00a0<br \/>Josh Drill, a spokesperson for Barkat, denied any connection to the network\u2019s activities.\u00a0<br \/>\u201cNir Barkat, who is leading the fight against the opening of an American consulate for the Palestinians in Jerusalem, has no need for such services and has never used fake accounts as the false claim insisted,\u201d he said. \u201cBarkat conducts his campaign against the division of Jerusalem through meetings with dozens of senators and members of Congress and expresses his position in the international media, which is viewed by tens of millions of people.\u201d<br \/>He added that Barkat\u2019s Facebook page has \u201cover 180,000 likes with hundreds of comments and shares on each post.\u201d\u00a0<br \/>FakeReporter\u2019s research, which was also shared with the Israeli newspaper Maariv, shows how most of the accounts in the network were created in the same week in August 2018 and appeared to belong to users in Nepal, with local usernames, languages and interests. In the summer of 2019, the accounts were changed to show Israeli profiles, with Hebrew names, profile pictures and interests.\u00a0<br \/>In some cases, the accounts still show apparent Nepali profile pictures alongside the pictures purporting to of be Israeli users. Others use profile photos generated by artificial intelligence-powered tools like <a href=\"https:\/\/thispersondoesnotexist.com\/\">This Person Does Not Exist<\/a> or real photos taken from Russian escort sites. Many profiles have apparent gender mismatches between the Hebrew names and the profile pictures. In some cases, fake accounts have been created using the identities of Israelis whose names are completely unique \u2014 discovered by cross-referencing names with a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.haaretz.com\/israel-news\/elections\/.premium-app-used-by-netanyahu-s-likud-leaks-israel-s-entire-voter-registry-1.8509696\">leaked national voter registry<\/a>.\u00a0<br \/>The accounts in the network mostly follow one another and have promoted the content of the same Israeli businesses and products, including a nail salon, a children\u2019s book and an interior design company. Schatz said that indicates that the network is available for hire by customers seeking to boost their digital presences.\u00a0<br \/>Before it promoted Barkat\u2019s posts, the network also promoted a project to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/permalink.php?story_fbid=509469586978571&#038;id=337645310827667&#038;comment_id=515818993010297\">build a wind farm in northern Israel<\/a>, which attracted widespread opposition from residents. FakeReporter noticed this week that profiles in the network have been writing posts defending an ultra-Orthodox writer, Haim Velder, after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.haaretz.co.il\/news\/law\/.premium.HIGHLIGHT-MAGAZINE-1.10376887\">three women alleged that he had sexually exploited them<\/a> \u2014 allegations that Velder denied in a statement to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. He did not respond to a request for comment through his lawyer.\u00a0\u00a0<br \/>FakeReporter had identified a section of the same network that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.calcalist.co.il\/offportal_calcalist_redirect.html?offpath=\/calcalistech\/article\/hkqpwb3po\">appeared to promote the content of another Israeli politician<\/a>, Orly Levy-Abekasis, in July. FakeReporter reported more than 180 accounts to Facebook at the time, and the company removed 83 percent of them.\u00a0<br \/>Levy-Abekasis denied having any connection to the network\u2019s activities in a statement to the Israeli <a href=\"https:\/\/www.calcalist.co.il\/calcalistech\/article\/hkqpwb3po\">business publication Calcalist<\/a>. <br \/>Schatz said: \u201cThese kinds of tactics are attacking every aspect of life for Israeli citizens. If we cannot process valid and reliable information, our decision-making is being made on false information. It\u2019s an attack on the very foundation of competition ideas we want in a democracy.\u201d<br \/>FakeReporter\u2019s research echoes findings previously disclosed by former Facebook data scientist Sophie Zhang, a whistleblower <a href=\"https:\/\/www.buzzfeednews.com\/article\/craigsilverman\/facebook-ignore-political-manipulation-whistleblower-memo\">who in a September 2020 internal memo<\/a> described how fake engagement created by networks like the one identified by FakeReporter could be used to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2021\/apr\/12\/facebook-fake-engagement-whistleblower-sophie-zhang\">distort global politics<\/a>. Zhang had spent many months at Facebook discovering and internally reporting suspicious networks promoting political content in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2021\/apr\/13\/facebook-honduras-juan-orlando-hernandez-fake-engagement\">Honduras<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2021\/apr\/13\/facebook-azerbaijan-ilham-aliyev\">Azerbaijan<\/a>, Mexico, Italy and other countries.\u00a0<br \/>\u201cSometimes the appearance of popularity can be more important than popularity itself,\u201d said Zhang, who said that was typically more an issue in \u201cauthoritarian countries or smaller countries.\u201d<br \/>When FakeReporter researchers shared their previous findings with Facebook over email in July, they characterized the activity as suspected \u201ccoordinated inauthentic behavior,\u201d a term Facebook uses to describe covert influence operations involving complex fake personas designed to mislead people about who is behind an operation to manipulate public debate for a strategic goal. <br \/>However, according to the emails exchanged between Facebook and the researchers, which were reviewed by NBC News, Facebook said the activity did not meet the threshold for coordinated inauthentic behavior and was instead an example of fake engagement, which is when people or businesses pay for services to make their content look more popular than it would normally be \u2014 even though the beneficiary of the engagement boost was a politician.<br \/>\u201cIt\u2019s an artificial distinction, and the effect on the public is the same,\u201d Schatz said. \u201cIn the end, it\u2019s a question of \u2018Are we, the users, being hurt or not? Are we safe or not?\u2019 That\u2019s what the public cares about.\u201d<br \/>Zhang, the Facebook whistleblower, said the distinctions within Facebook between fake engagement on political content and coordinated inauthentic behavior were \u201cpretty arbitrary.\u201d<br \/>\u201cBut with fake engagement it can be more difficult to find evidence that the politician is knowledgeable or responsible for the inauthentic behavior, which is probably why Facebook is being cautious about it,\u201d she said.\u00a0<br \/>Facebook said that it removes accounts whether they are categorized internally as coordinated inauthentic behavior or fake engagement but that it typically spends more time investigating the former because of the complexity of the behavior. The company also publicizes <a href=\"https:\/\/about.fb.com\/news\/tag\/coordinated-inauthentic-behavior\/\">coordinated inauthentic behavior takedowns<\/a> on its blog.\u00a0<br \/>Disinformation expert Emerson Brooking, a resident senior fellow at the Digital Forensic Research Lab at the Atlantic Council, a nonprofit think tank, agreed that it is difficult to determine who has paid for such fake engagement.\u00a0<br \/>\u201cBut this sounds like potentially different treatment for different countries,\u201d he said. \u201cIf this was a Russian or Iranian campaign in which previous spam commercial assets have been turned to false amplification for political purposes, I think [Facebook] would take them more seriously.\u201d<br \/>Facebook denied that it treated certain countries with more leniency and pointed to <a href=\"https:\/\/about.fb.com\/news\/2019\/05\/removing-coordinated-inauthentic-behavior-from-israel\/\">previous takedowns of Israeli accounts<\/a> for coordinated inauthentic behavior.<br \/>Brooking said that regardless of how Facebook categorized the activity, it was a \u201cforeign spam network that is ultimately trying to influence American citizens and U.S. policy.\u201d<br \/>\u201cThis is not good for our democracy,\u201d he said.<br \/>Olivia Solon is a senior reporter on the tech investigations team for NBC News.<br \/>&copy;&nbsp;2021 NBC UNIVERSAL<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/tech\/fake-facebook-accounts-boost-campaign-opposing-us-consulate-jerusalem-rcna6050\">source<\/a><\/p>\n<!--CusAds0-->\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SectionstvFeaturedMore From NBCFollow NBC NewsA leading Israeli politician\u2019s lobbying campaign against reopening a U.S. consulate for Palestinians in East Jerusalem has been amplified on Facebook by a network of fake accounts, according to research shared with NBC News.The politician, former Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, a challenger to replace Benjamin Netanyahu as the leader\u00a0of Israel\u2019s opposition [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"googlesitekit_rrm_CAow1sXXCw:productID":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-classe"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}