Days of trolls and hackers are numbered

In a recent meeting I had with Facebook executives, they said they are continually developing new tools and technologies to increase account security as well as identify and shut down fake Facebook accounts that scam people and, more critically, those that are used for misinformation/disinformation and covert influence operations. 

In November last year, Meta – the parent company of Facebook – announced that it has shut down over 4,800 fake social media accounts that originated from China but whose profiles appear to be Americans (complete with fake photos) creating and sharing political content aimed at sowing political discord and furthering ideological divide. 

While misinformation/disinformation activities are geared at spreading fake news or misleading information, influence operations (IO) take things a step further because they are aimed at manipulating public opinion/perception and ultimately, influencing political outcomes. IO may also use trolls, hackers and cyberthugs to attack personalities through black propaganda by spreading lies and engaging in smear campaigns. 

In the Philippines, “cyberthugs” are increasingly becoming rampant, with black propaganda and demolition jobs now considered to be big business, making it relatively easy to hire IO and social media rent-a-groups. Oftentimes, the source of the black propaganda/smear campaign is a newly created Facebook account (likely to be dubious or fake) making a malicious post or content that assails the integrity and credibility of public figures or institutions.  

Aside from the use of fake social media accounts (with ridiculous sounding names and locked or blank profiles) another way to spot a demolition job is when there is a “coordinated inauthentic behavior” (CIB) from Facebook and other social media platforms like X that post the same content with copy pasted, repetitive, scripted and verbatim comments attacking the target at specific time intervals, in contrast with real social media accounts whose users show diverse opinions and a variety of comments. 

Obviously, technological advancements have also greatly enabled the capability of cybercriminals to perpetuate scams, steal data, hack company