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Incident 324: GAN Faces Deployed by The BL's Fake Account Network to Push Pro-Trump Content on Meta Platforms

Description: A large network of pages, groups, and fake accounts having GAN-generated face photos associated with The BL, a US-based media outlet, reportedly bypassed Facebook moderation systems to push "pro-Trump" narratives on its platform and Instagram.

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Entities

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Alleged: unknown developed an AI system deployed by The BL, which harmed Instagram users and Facebook users.

Incident Stats

Incident ID
324
Report Count
6
Incident Date
2019-11-12
Editors
Khoa Lam
Applied Taxonomies
MIT

MIT Taxonomy Classifications

Machine-Classified
Taxonomy Details

Risk Subdomain

A further 23 subdomains create an accessible and understandable classification of hazards and harms associated with AI
 

4.1. Disinformation, surveillance, and influence at scale

Risk Domain

The Domain Taxonomy of AI Risks classifies risks into seven AI risk domains: (1) Discrimination & toxicity, (2) Privacy & security, (3) Misinformation, (4) Malicious actors & misuse, (5) Human-computer interaction, (6) Socioeconomic & environmental harms, and (7) AI system safety, failures & limitations.
 
  1. Malicious Actors & Misuse

Entity

Which, if any, entity is presented as the main cause of the risk
 

Human

Timing

The stage in the AI lifecycle at which the risk is presented as occurring
 

Post-deployment

Intent

Whether the risk is presented as occurring as an expected or unexpected outcome from pursuing a goal
 

Intentional

Incident Reports

Reports Timeline

+1
How a Pro-Trump Network Is Building a Fake Empire on Facebook and Getting Away with It
+2
If Facebook Is Dealing with Deceptive ‘BL’ Network, It's Not Working
Facebook removes accounts with AI-generated profile photosMedia Outlet The BL Evaded a Facebook Ban By Making a Copy of Its Site
How a Pro-Trump Network Is Building a Fake Empire on Facebook and Getting Away with It

How a Pro-Trump Network Is Building a Fake Empire on Facebook and Getting Away with It

snopes.com

If Facebook Is Dealing with Deceptive ‘BL’ Network, It's Not Working

If Facebook Is Dealing with Deceptive ‘BL’ Network, It's Not Working

snopes.com

Removing Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior From Georgia, Vietnam and the US

Removing Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior From Georgia, Vietnam and the US

about.fb.com

Facebook Removes Accounts With AI-Generated Profile Photos

Facebook Removes Accounts With AI-Generated Profile Photos

wired.com

Facebook removes accounts with AI-generated profile photos

Facebook removes accounts with AI-generated profile photos

arstechnica.com

Media Outlet The BL Evaded a Facebook Ban By Making a Copy of Its Site

Media Outlet The BL Evaded a Facebook Ban By Making a Copy of Its Site

snopes.com

How a Pro-Trump Network Is Building a Fake Empire on Facebook and Getting Away with It
snopes.com · 2019

Last month, Snopes exposed a media outlet named The BL — short for “The Beauty of Life” — as being directly connected to the controversial Falun Gong-linked newspaper The Epoch Times. The Epoch Times, which has effectively served as an arm …

If Facebook Is Dealing with Deceptive ‘BL’ Network, It's Not Working
snopes.com · 2019

Since October 2019, Snopes has been following the activities of a digital media outlet called “The BL” — short for “The Beauty of Life” — which has an explicitly pro-Trump editorial strategy. In several ways, as we have shown in multiple in…

Removing Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior From Georgia, Vietnam and the US
about.fb.com · 2019

Today, we removed two unconnected networks of accounts, Pages and Groups for engaging in foreign and government interference — which is coordinated inauthentic behavior on behalf of a government or foreign actor — on Facebook and Instagram.…

Facebook Removes Accounts With AI-Generated Profile Photos
wired.com · 2019

Facebook on Friday removed what it called a global network of more than 900 accounts, pages, and groups from its platform and Instagram that allegedly used deceptive practices to push pro-Trump narratives to about 55 million users. The netw…

Facebook removes accounts with AI-generated profile photos
arstechnica.com · 2019

Facebook on Friday removed what it called a global network of more than 900 accounts, pages, and groups from its platform and Instagram that allegedly used deceptive practices to push pro-Trump narratives to about 55 million users. The netw…

Media Outlet The BL Evaded a Facebook Ban By Making a Copy of Its Site
snopes.com · 2020

In a series of reports published between October and December 2019, Snopes exposed an Epoch Times-linked media outlet called The Beauty of Life (or The BL) for inauthentically amplifying its content using a massive network of fake Facebook …

Variants

A "variant" is an incident that shares the same causative factors, produces similar harms, and involves the same intelligent systems as a known AI incident. Rather than index variants as entirely separate incidents, we list variations of incidents under the first similar incident submitted to the database. Unlike other submission types to the incident database, variants are not required to have reporting in evidence external to the Incident Database. Learn more from the research paper.

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