How Fake Social Media Accounts Damages are More than Election Manipulation
Their damages can be minimized with the following actions
Ten years back, the rise of some modern revolutions of the middle east was credited to social networking. But today, with the easily accessible internet and smartphones, things aren’t improving as expected. Social networking is talked about and remembered for many unpleasant effects they have caused in society. It’s not only about the psychological effects on children or misunderstanding in relationships of a family. Society, especially in developing and underdeveloped nations, has seen some horrible crimes that have been linked to the misuse of social platforms, all thanks to their ignorance.
Because it’s not only about election
How social network has manipulated the life of many innocents is a never-ending discussion. In this article, I will talk about the wicked sides of a different social platform that has been prevailing in developing and underdeveloped nation. I will also mention its common problem and how these problems can be addressed to minimize social destructions.
The spams and fake news about coronavirus is just one of the many examples we find every day.
It would be so early to infer how successful they are in controlling spams and fake news related to coronavirus, but looking at their history, Facebook has failed most of the time. Not only Facebook, but most of the social networking sites have also failed in maintaining social harmony, especially in the last five years.
CBS News in its article revealed that Facebook deleted 5.8 million fake accounts before the 2016 Election. The damage must have been irrecoverable. Again, it’s not only about The United States of America.
Research by Oxford Internet Institute states that organized social media manipulation campaigns are now prevalent in 70 countries around the world, (more than double compared to 28 in 2017)
Lately, social networking giants have been taking some steps to address the damage caused. Facebook had announced grants for independent research on Social Media’s impact on democracy using Facebook data. Twitter announced that it will no more be promoting political content.
Hopefully, they regret their past and learn from those mistakes. But again, many unaddressed issues need to be resolved at the earliest.
Welcome to the dark age of Facebook
The past month I typed the name of my class-mate on a Facebook search box to find a strange account. The first result stunned me. A profile filled with semi-nude pictures of various women had over two hundred thousand followers. That account doesn’t belong to any model or common person. Instead, it had hundreds of exotic and sexually appealing pictures of various girls. Even a five-year-old child would say they are not of the same person. I reported it as a fake profile. Since its photos didn’t violate community guidelines, Facebook support asked me to block the profile if I have any problem with it.
Yes, I have a problem because a girl in a photo didn’t post those pictures herself. Blocking the profile won’t solve the case. Can you imagine personal photos of yours spreading in the market and being seen by thousands of other strangers without your permission? I have a huge objection with such photos being posted by anonymous for benefit of the third party. Such photos can also be posted intending to revenge and blackmailing victims. Facebook not feeling the need to verify/scrutinize such accounts is a serious issue for today’s world.
There are thousands of such fake profiles I come across every day existing on Facebook. I am sure this is not a problem for the Indian subcontinent or developing nations only. Fake accounts exist everywhere, and their damage can be tremendous and irreparable.
Apart from sharing pictures, such accounts are also posting biased political news that misleads the perception of society about current affairs.
Fake accounts are using images of innocent people. Controlling them is not a priority of Facebook because all Facebook cares about is user-interaction. I feel helpless because the only thing I can do is report those accounts and wait for their support rejection message.
Facebook groups are the other disaster whose black side has no limit.
Welcome to the dark age of Twitter
Six months back, one of the Nepali magazines published about a Vietnam model who resembled a Nepali girl. An opportunistic created a twitter account on random Nepali name, keeping her provoking and arousing pictures and texts appealing as if she is a genuine local girl. It soon got viral and collected over ten thousand followers. I reported that account, but twitter often replied that it hasn’t violated community guidelines.
The pity part of the social networking platform is that anyone can create an account with a profile picture of any girl, provide an alternate mobile number for verification, post her pictures, write sexually appealing content and generate a thousand followers in no time. In a developing country like Nepal where the government is seriously considering twitter views as public feedback, such types of accounts, hundreds in number are circulating biased views that fulfill propaganda of a limited person. Even boys including any public or common figure can suffer through such activities.
Individuals and governments are helpless in tracking and punishing such culprits.
Twitter is a new porn-hub
Twitter is one step ahead in proving to themselves that they are a disaster for our society. While fake accounts are affecting user privacy, easily available porn videos on twitter are another problem Twitter is least concerned about. I would have no problem if any user would post her self nude pictures or porn videos. Twitter allows to post porn videos of a third person and yet does not remove them even after reporting.
I see various of such accounts; I report them every day, but to date, such porn accounts being deleted are very rare. It wouldn’t be wrong to say twitter is a modern porn hub easily accessible to common people.
It’s not the problem just with Nepal or developing countries
I hope you had experienced dark sides of social networking in your city and your country too. It’s not just about the presidential election and fake news, it is about every moment of society where a psychopath wants to change the way we see our society. I list down a few important.
Fake users
Fake users in social networking play an important role in bringing eruptions in society. This is supposed to be on the top list of social crimes. Fake users have risen so much that we have adapted our digestive system to ignore this part. Yes, we have remained silent unless the fake accounts directly harm us or our family.
It defames not only politicians but also a common man. vulnerable teenagers and women in society. Fake Facebook and Twitter handles are used to take revenge by posting objectionable photos. With photo editing tools, they are even more harmful. Especially in underdeveloped and developing countries where society is sensitive even to an exposed cleavage or short skirts, fake accounts created intending to take revenge and defame have taken the lives of many young souls in the last decade. We can minimize its harm to a large extent.
Fake news
Every one of us has suffered through fake news in one or another form. Mostly ill-minded user takes advantage of inappropriate title, clickbait article to not only earn profits but also interrupt social and religious harmony. In this process, twitter and Facebook play an important role in diverting traffic to such sites through the user’s timeline, page, and enormous groups. However, if taken seriously, such damage can be reduced.
How can we reduce the effect of this dark side?
We can’t directly. But if the social networking platform wants, there are some easier ways to tackle this situation and lower the impact of fake accounts.
Compulsory face validation for unrestricted access
One of the biggest problems we have is a fake user account. Social media house can minimize the damage by making photo-face validation compulsory. Users can opt-out not to validate their pictures but in that case, their friend/follower list be restricted below 200, they should be barred from commenting on large groups and not allowed to host any group/page with more than 100 followers. Of course, the threshold number can be decided by social media houses after certain studies.
Face validation shouldn’t be taken as an endorsement or verified profile badge. It is an assurance of genuine profile and a key to the unrestricted activity of users unless they violate community guidelines. If today’s dating app can add face verification tools, Facebook and Twitter can surely think about this step. It will eradicate most of the fake data and make a common man assured that a stranger photo will be safe.
Card validator and rating for websites
Most of the traffic to fake websites is diverted from Facebook and twitter only. While twitter requires a card validator for image thumbnails of any website, Facebook has no such criteria. With an addition to the requirement of card-validator from users who has no community violation record, social media need to show the rating for any website on the timeline itself so as it could caution any user. If they have many negative ratings, their link can be temporarily or permanently banned. They need to classify the type of content website is hosting and plan accordingly.
Dis-link old news post
Recently, a user posted a terrible accident news link in his timeline. In the time of lockdown, he was doing it to kill his boredom by posting outdated news. Such types of posts of news can play a disaster role in the community, which is sensibly diversified. Social media can automatically detect the date of posting such news and not distribute it to any audience/user if they are outdated.
Developing good-soul community
We need to accept that artificial intelligence and machine learning till today is not perfect enough to detect all fake accounts and their disruptive behaviors. To address the loopholes, social media can build their local community of users with no previous community violation records and other certain criteria so that content reported by them would be taken seriously. Instant feedbacks of random and diversified users can be used to temporarily hide any malicious posts to reduce the effect negativity caused by any post.
Restrict users who post objectionable content.
If any user is found violating community guidelines or posting objectionable content, their activities can be temporarily restricted. This can stop them from creating or commenting on any individual or group posts. To smoothly execute, the good-soul community stated above can be utilized.
My Conclusion
Social networking platform has been giving us a wide range of opportunities to connect people, grow business, and aware of the world. But we can’t rule out their dark part increasing dominating in today’s society. We realize the abnormal behavior of social networking only during an election or major social disaster, but we shouldn’t forget that fake accounts and malicious links are altering views of common people at every stage of our life. While social networking house has distanced themselves from the government to prevent exploitation of user data, their inability to limit fake activity has tremendously affected good governance. It affects social harmony. It’s high time they validate users by their face and use the pool of a good community to track cancerous activities.
References:
- CBS News https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebook-deleted-5-8-million-accounts-just-before-the-2016-election/
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