Husky Attack: Why Facebook Removed Over 800 Popular Pages Three Weeks Before Congress Elections

On the eve of the midterm elections to the US Congress, the social network Facebook has deleted 810 accounts and pages that allegedly spread “misinformation” and spam. The black list included, in particular, popular bloggers with a large number of subscribers who believe that their pages were removed for supporting Donald Trump and conservative views.

“After five years of development, our Facebook page officially deactivated it (3.1 million readers), so that we can no longer post on it. This is outrageous, and we are depressed by this decision. We will do everything possible to restore the page and fight back, ”the statement of the Free Thought Project blog said.

In addition to the Free Thought Project, blogs such as the Nation in Distress with an audience of over 3 million people, The Anti-Media with 2.1 million readers, the Police the Police with an audience of 1.9 million were removed. These and other accounts existed on the Facebook platform over the years.

“Facebook removed my Anti-Media page from publication after false accusations of violating the rules of participation. 2.1 million readers and five years of work were in vain, ”wrote The Anti-Media administrator Nicholas Barnabe.

In addition to blogs and groups with conservative news, Facebook also blocked personal user accounts, including Rachel Blevins, a correspondent of RT America.

“Facebook deleted my page, which was read by almost 70 thousand people, calling it spam. I spent four years developing it and posting articles I wrote and videos of my reports there, ”wrote RT America journalist on Twitter.

I’ve been spending a lot of time with my videos. This is so incredibly wrong.

The RT correspondent reported that she could not log into her personal account either from a stationary computer or from a smartphone.

I’m on my phone or desktop computer ... pic.twitter.com/MjupwjXYLe

“I am completely deprived of access to my account, and I get this message about blocking when I try to access it from a computer or phone,” wrote Blevins.

Not all remote users live in the USA - RT managed to talk to Trofim Tatarenkov, whose Russian-language page was also deleted during the sweep.

“According to my data, at least 100 top bloggers with coverage of more than 200 thousand people were blacklisted. Of course, I did not deal with spam or misinformation. There were sharp political comments on my page, and trolling that was easy for the Russian people to understand. This was my personal page in Russian. I was removed as a bot, while I had several thousand personal photos there. I sent passport information upon request, but nothing was answered and the page was not restored. In addition, I had blocked access to the site from all devices from which I visited it, ”said Tatarenkov.

American trolls

Facebook itself stated that this purge was directed not at Russian, but at American trolls. The head of the cyber security department of the company, Nathaniel Glacier, claims that the “fake activity” for which the pages were eliminated is motivated by a thirst for profit.

“A common type of spam is an attempt to impose on subscribers advertising of unfair products such as fake glasses or means for losing weight,” The Telegraph newspaper quoted Glaisher.

Journalist John Hawkins, founder of Right Wing News and until recently leading the Facebook page of the same name, said that the accusations of spam and "fake activity" are just a pretext by which the social network gets rid of pages with conservative views.

“After the liberal mainstream media shouted at every corner about Russia, which buys ads and distributes“ fake news, ”Facebook systematically and methodically reduced the page coverage with the help of new algorithms. If Facebook simply turned off all conservative pages at once, there would be a big protest. On the other hand, if Facebook slowly strangles us, we will simply disappear and no one will even notice, ”said Hawkins.

At the same time, Nathaniel Glacier admitted that it is often difficult to distinguish "dishonest" political agitation from sincere political discourse and debate.

Recall that in July the company removed 32 pages, which, according to its representatives, bear the imprints of the “Russian campaign of influence”. In August, Facebook deleted another 652 pages, behind which allegedly stood Iran.

“If you look at the situation as a whole, then most of the information operations we observe are carried out by internal players,” Gleischer stressed.

Safety and Warnings

Facebook shares have lost 30% in value since July, according to CNN. The fall in the company's value continued after it declared “vulnerability” in the social network.

• In April, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg spoke to the Senate committee during hearings on interference with elections.
• Reuters
• © Leah Millis

The impact on the value of the shares could have a message and the agency Bloomerg, which in late September, said the Trump administration is preparing to apply anti-monopoly legislation against large Internet companies.

Trump himself has repeatedly stated that he considers the appeal of social networks like Facebook and Twitter to conservative bloggers as dishonest.

“Social networks are clearly dishonest to Republicans and conservatives. I declare on behalf of the Trump administration with all clarity: we will not allow this. They drown out the opinions of many people with right-wing political views, while not touching everyone else, ”wrote Trump on his Twitter in mid-August.

Own intervention

The existence of political censorship on Facebook and Twitter is not news, says American political scientist Mikhail Sinelnikov-Orishak. According to him, this is a long-established phenomenon.

“It’s just that earlier it didn’t fall into the focus of attention, because there wasn’t such overt intervention, but such a problem didn’t appear today or yesterday, and not even after“ Kremlin bots attacked the American elections. ” This phenomenon is called “astroturfing” - it is the creation of artificial reality, artificial public opinion using various technical means, ”said the expert.

At the same time, a political scientist noted that the leaders of Internet giants will look for any reasons for such sweeps.

“It is impossible to prove it, because as soon as it will be proved, serious criminal prosecution will start, because this creates unequal conditions for the candidates. Therefore, the removal of these pages will be motivated by anything, but not by the fact that they want to specifically campaign for Trump. Otherwise there will be a very big scandal. But the fact that these pages were selected, as they say, one to one and testified for a particular candidate, leads to definite conclusions. But it will not be possible to document these conclusions, ”emphasizes Sinelnikov-Orishak.

Electoral market

The essence of the work of the social network Facebook allows you to manipulate information and to make so that either one or other representatives of the establishment look in a more favorable or unfavorable light, said political scientist Sergei Sudakov, political scientist of the Academy of Military Sciences. According to him, Facebook is a tool for shaping the electoral market, which members of non-party elites are not afraid to use openly.

“Trump's promise to dry up the“ Washington marsh ”does not work, but the“ Washington marshland ”itself is trying to do everything so that step by step to put sticks into Trump's wheels, set traps for it and do everything so that Trump could not bring his Republican Party for a fairly high, good result in the upcoming elections on November 6. And the time is running out, ”said Sudakov.

Such stripping is a direct intervention in the formation of the electoral market, Sudakov notes. According to the political scientist, as the date of the mid-term elections approaches, there will be more and more such interventions.

“Now in the USA there is a redistribution of the election market. And while we see that the blows that the electoral market receives from the establishment are very noticeable. I believe that in the near future we will see even more provocations by the Democrats. And the Democrats do not hesitate to say: “You, all owners of industrial capital, do not cost anything, because our intangible capital is hundreds or thousands of times higher than your capital, we can create absolutely any illusory pictures of the world, and it works,” concluded the expert.