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Hours after Donald Trump was sworn as president, users spread false claims that immigrants and customs enforcement agencies were paying prizes for undocumented people’s reports.
“Breaking – Ice is said to offer $750 per illegal immigrant you spin through their tip shape,” adding “people cash,” filters seeking the truth Please read the posts on the page without any.
Check your facts, Reuters and other fact-checkers have exposed their claims and added labels to posts warning Facebook that contain false information or missing context. ICE has a tip line but said no cash prizes were offered.
This spring, Meta will be halting its cooperation with US fact checkers and labeling false or misleading content, saying on Jan. 7. Cash bonus.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also said in January that the company was removing or dialing automation systems that reduce the spread of false information. At the same time, Meta is revamping programs that paid creators bonuses for content based on views and engagement, potentially putting acceleration into the types of incorrect posts they once policed. The new Facebook content monetization program is currently only invited, but Meta is expected to be widely available this year.
This result: There is a possibility of a revival of inflammatory false narratives on Facebook, some of which are funded by Meta.
What we see
During Donald Trump’s second presidency, Propovica will focus on areas that need scrutiny. Below are some of the issues reporters watch, and how to safely communicate with them.
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Propublica has identified 95 Facebook pages that regularly post headlines configured to elicit engagement. The page, mostly managed by people from overseas, has a total of over 7.7 million followers.
After the review, Meta said she removed 81 pages to be managed by fake accounts or misrepresented as Americans while posting about political and social issues. Meta spokesman Tracy Clayton declined to answer certain questions, including whether they are eligible or registered for the company’s Virus Content Payout Program.
Pages collected by Propublica provide samples of samples that may be ready to earn cash.
Meta calls this content “worst and worst” the virus hoax that drips virus hoaxes created for money for nearly a decade. Meta has a policy to pay for content with Fact-Checkers labels as False, but if the company stops working with them, that rule becomes irrelevant. Already, 404 media has earned payments using deceptive AI-generated content, including images of debilitated people who aim to blow away emotions and engagements. I discovered it. This kind of content is rarely fact-checked as it does not make verifiable claims.
With the removal of fact checks in the US, “What are the protections against virus hoaxes for commercial purposes?” Jeff Allen, chief research officer and former META data scientist at the non-profit Integrity Institute said.
“This system is designed to amplify the most despicable and incited content,” he added.
No Filter Seeking Truth, who is seeking Truth, who shares False Ice Post in exchange on Facebook Messenger, shares false information to Propublica that does not allow Meta to make money under the present. Rule that Page said he was punished multiple times. The page is run by a woman based in the Southern US and spoke anonymously for saying that she was under threat for her post. She said the news about the end of the fact-checking system is “great information.”
Clayton said that Meta’s community standards and content moderation teams are still active and work to ensure that they do not “over-strengthen” the rules by accidentally banning or suppressing content. He said he repeated the statement on the 7th of the month.
The meta changes show an important reversal of the company’s approach to moderate false and misleading information, reconstructing content labeling or downretting as a form of censorship. “Now is the time to go back to our roots, focusing on free expressions on Facebook and Instagram,” Zuckerberg said in his announcement. His stance reflects Elon Musk’s approach after he acquired Twitter in 2022. Musk has significantly reduced the company’s trust and safety team and revived thousands of suspended accounts, including community notes positioned as prominent neo-Nazis. As a key system of the platform for flagging false and misleading content, participating users can add context via notes added to tweets.
Zuckerberg says Meta will replace Fact-Checkers and several automated systems in the US with versions of the Community Notes system. An update to the meta policy page on January 7th revealed that in the US, companies could “still reduce the distribution of certain hoax content that generates particularly bad users or product experiences (such as certain commercial hoaxes).” It states.
Clayton did not clarify whether posts with notes added to them qualify for monetization. He provides links to academic papers detailing how crowdsourcing fact-checking programs like Community Notes are effective in building trust between users, addressing bias perceptions. I did.
A 2023 Propublica investigation and a report from Bloomberg found that X’s community notes were unable to effectively deal with misinformation about the Israeli Hama conflict. Reports from the BBC and Agence France-Presse show that X users who share false information are making thousands of dollars thanks to X’s content monetization program.
X’s Vice President of Products Keith Coleman previously told Propublica that the community notes analysis on the Israel Hama conflict did not include all relevant notes. spectrum. “
Allen said expanding crowdsourcing fact-checking systems requires time, resources and surveillance. Meta’s decision to remove facts before giving a new approach time is dangerous to prove itself.
“In theory, you could have an effective community note program, if not more effective than a fact-checking program,” he said. “But turning off all of this before you secure a community note makes it feel like we have an explicit moment on the little guardrail.”
Before Facebook cracks down on content in late 2016, American fake news peddlers and spammers based in North Macedonia and elsewhere have deepened political divisions and sparked a virus hoax that played people’s fears It’s cashed out.
One American, Jestin Coler, ran a network of sites that made money from hoax news stories for almost a decade, including the infamous 2016 false virus headlines. He previously told NPR that he started the site as a way to “penetrate the echo chamber of Alt-Right.” Koller said he got five digits a month from a site he ran in his spare time.
When people clicked on a link to stories in their newsfeed, they landed on a website full of Coler’s revenue-generating ads. This has become a more stringent business model as Meta has become easier to view story links on Facebook in recent years.
Facebook’s new program, which pays publishers directly for viral content, can unleash new revenue streams of hoaxes. “It’s still the same ceremony to hit people. Koller told Propublica in a phone interview. He left the Facebook hoax business a few years ago and said he wouldn’t be back.
In January, Propublica compiled a list of previously cited pages to post hoax and false content, and discovered dozens more through searching for domains and content. The page posted false headlines designed to spark controversy, such as “Lea Thomas disguised a trance to expose, ‘I’m easily cheated on the left.” programming. “Musk’s headline was combined with his AI-generated image, contracted with the MSNBC logo. It generated over 11,000 reactions, shares and comments.
According to Facebook data, most pages are managed by non-US accounts, including North Macedonia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia. Many of these pages use images generated by AI to describe the configured headings.
One network of pages operating overseas is connected to the site SpaceXmania.com, an advertising funding site filled with articles of hoaxes such as “Elon Musk stands openly against Beyoncé.” The network’s largest Facebook page has nearly 220,000 followers, labeling their content as satire. One recent post was an AI-generated image of a typo in a sign saying, “There are only two genders and only two genders that ban athletes from female sports.”
According to the Terms of Use page on SpaceXmania.com, it is owned by Funky Creations Ltd, a British company registered with Pakistani citizen Muhammad Shabayer Shawkat. Propublica sent the question to the site and received an email response signed by Tim Lawson. He said he is a Florida-based American who works for Shaukat. (Propublica could not find a person by that name in searches of public records based on the information he provided.)
“Our work is to analyze the latest trends and famous news related to celebrities and shape it in a way that appeals to certain audiences, especially conservatives and far-right groups who tend to believe in certain stories. includes,” the email said.
Lawson said he earns between $500 and $1,500 a month from web ads, and more than half of his traffic comes from people clicking on Facebook links. According to Lawson, the page is currently not subscribed to the invitation-only Facebook content monetization program.
The SpaceXMania page identified by Propublica has recently been taken offline. Lawson denied that they were removed by the meta and said they disabled the page “for some security reasons.” Meta declined to comment.
Texas banned abortions. The sepsis rate then skyrocketed.
As the reversal of meta algorithms take hold and the US fact-checking program ceased, it is still unknown how hoax page operators will work. However, some Facebook users are already using loose guardrails.
Shortly after Zuckerberg announced the changes, people spread fake screenshots of Bloomberg articles.
“Community Notes: Confirmed Truth,” wrote one commenter.
Mollie Simon contributed to the research.
