Facebook whistleblower on Big Tech disruptions, Article 230 and the fight against botnets

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Former Facebook data scientist who became a whistleblower when she left the company last September calls for more transparency and oversight of social media giants while advocating for the retention of the controversial Section 230 clause .

“It is certainly true that social media is a natural monopoly because people are looking for social media networks that all of their friends are logged into,” Sophie Zhang told FOX Business on Friday. “And that means once there’s a business established it’s really hard to introduce a competitor.”

But unlike other “natural monopolies,” like utility companies, social media giants are not subject to strict government regulations, she said.

Yet simply pulling them apart is only part of the solution, she added.

As FOX Business previously reported, Zhang turned down a $ 64,000 severance package from Facebook in order to retain his ability to speak publicly about the business.

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While humbly admitting that she’s not an expert on politics, Zhang says she has some ideas on how to clean up coordinated inauthentic behavior – or an activity that includes using false identity networks to share, liking or commenting on posts, artificially increasing their engagement metrics and expanding their reach.

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Zhang made headlines in September 2020 when Buzzfeed News reported a leaked memo she wrote for Facebook employees that alleged leaders from countries like Brazil, India, Honduras and Azerbaijan used fake account networks to promote their programs or stifle criticism while the company looked a way. In some cases, governments have not even tried to cover up the activity.

“On the internet, only one person can claim to be a crowd,” she said. “There’s no way to do that in real life – I don’t know how someone can go out on the street and suddenly pretend to be 100 people.”

And when people try to force a crowd to support something, it can have unexpected results for the organizers, she said, giving the example of former Romanian communist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu.

“He delivered a speech in front of 100,000 people in Bucharest who were transported by bus and made signs in support of him,” Zhang said. “And the crowd turned on him during the speech, and all of a sudden, what had [began as] a show of force for the Romanian communist government has turned into a national revolution. “

Four days later, on Christmas 1989, Ceaușescu and his wife were tried and executed, according to the Associated Press.

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But on the internet, rather than getting people to act as supporters, they can simply be created from scratch in large numbers at the click of a button with a fake name and a stock photo – and that’s what Zhang investigated on Facebook.

Facebook has publicly touted its crackdown on this type of activity, announcing major breaks in bot and troll networks, massive bans and group closings.

His most recent report on Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior, released on July 8, noted the outbreak of an operation in Mexico like what Zhang found in India and Brazil – networks using fake interactions to promote lawmakers to these countries during the election season.

Facebook said it deleted more than 3,000 accounts, pages and groups linked to Worgcorp, a political strategist and public relations firm.

“They have also created pages designed to resemble user profiles – using fake names and stock images – to comment in Spanish and amplify content on various candidates for the June 2021 election in Campeche,” said the report. “They mainly focused on the gubernatorial elections in Campeche state, including the promotion of two opposing candidates for governor.”

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The size and reach of social media giants make them desirable targets for such operations, but Zhang said there are pros and cons to breaking monopolies.

“Due to the fact that Facebook owns Instagram, Instagram was able to benefit from my expertise while I was working at Facebook,” she said. “When I found the [Azerbaijan] Firm to government trolls who harassed their opposition on Facebook, we are also able to immediately, without delay, remove the operation on Instagram as well. “

But a Honduran operation used both Facebook and Twitter, and Zhang said Twitter tackled the issue months after Facebook.

“I’m certainly not suggesting that Facebook should own Twitter,” she said. “But I’m doing this as an example of how dismantling businesses without doing anything else can have unintended consequences.”

She also offered three suggestions on how to combat IPC.

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One is to impose a separation between the surveillance teams and the teams responsible for maintaining good relations with foreign governments. If the same team is handling both, it can be easy to let bad behavior go.

Another suggestion is government regulations requiring social media giants to be transparent on issues like CIB.

“At the moment, Facebook is only giving an incomplete picture which is in its own interest,” she said.

And the third involves “penetration testing” in which outside agencies attempt CIB attacks and then publicly assess how well the social media giants have handled them.

These regulations could potentially be enforced by the United States, the European Union and other allies, she said.

“Unfortunately, the United Nations, I don’t think that’s a good way to go,” she said. “The United States should cooperate with the European Union on this matter because they both have similar concerns, but currently they are doing very different things.”

As for Section 230, the controversial liability protection in the 1996 Communications Decency Act that has come under criticism from Republicans and Democrats in recent years, she said she said. thought she should stay.

“I think Section 230 is definitely an important part of the modern Internet, and its repeal would destroy the Internet as we know it,” Zhang said. “I think most of the people who are discussing the repeal of Section 230 are motivated by wanting less social media moderation of content, but the reality is that would increase content moderation.”

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Section 230 protects Internet platforms from being held responsible for content shared on their sites by third-party users. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have proposed repealing or reforming it.

But just getting rid of it could cause social media companies and other websites and apps that allow user-generated content to narrowly define what is acceptable in order to avoid potential liability.

But Zhang was quick to note that his expertise is less in moderation of content than in detecting organized attempts to use bogus entity networks to influence public opinion.

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