Censorship or Controlling the Narrative?
Over the duration of this class we have talked a great deal about social media networks and how they utilize networks of individuals to improve their platform. On September 17th Retuers released an article titled “Facebook targets harmful real networks, using playbooks against fakes’ ‘. Through Facebook has seen great success through the use of networks there are still a ton of negative effects of networks that Facebook still has to deal with in their day to day operations. In this article a new tactic that Facebook’s security team has been using is captured. In short, people have been using false accounts to manipulate public debate, an example of this is Russian Troll Farms, basically people are using fake accounts to spread false news, posts, and comments.
Facebook announced that it will now be using the same network-level approach that they have been for years using to their advantage to identify these mass attacks. As stated in this article social media giant Facebook said that it will use this network level approach to campaign real users of the coordinated social harm that occurs when these groups decide to spread these false narratives. I believe that this greatly ties into what we’ve been learning about in class because networks are an essential part of our everyday lives. By simply studying networks and all of the individuals online that are interconnected we as scientists can get a better understanding of what people are interested in. Networks give companies like Facebook the ability to intervene and stop false news from being spread. A prime example of this occurs during the Pandemic where engineers at Facebook are experimenting with the power that they have when it comes to censoring the content that is spread using their platform. As global regulation has added to increased pressure on social media networks to censor the type of content that is spread. I believe that it will be extremely interesting to see the approach that they take using the power of networks and social media to control the nartritace that we see in our everyday lives.
https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-facebook-target-harmful-coordination-by-real-accounts-using-playbook-2021-09-16/