Hi guys.

Not sure if you guys have noticed this, but recently there's been a huge influx of fake accounts commenting on news articles in Malaysia.

Most recently, consider this Kini opinion piece about the recent visit from the Taliban.




Just look at the people who are commenting their accounts and the people who like the comments.

The accounts are invariably accounts with fake Al profile pictures, and they are locked.

The comments are all of a particular political leaning, and if you look at the sheer number of likes, on average Malaysiakini article comments don't receive such a large number of likes in the course of less than an hour and clearly, if you look at this, you will see that there is manipulation.

I think that always has been, but recently it has escalated like crazy.

Has anyone else noticed this?

Have a look at a sample at the link and down below and you will see multiple instances of this fake account usage.
There are at least fifteen fake accounts here - Eddie Azman, Fakri Nazri, Izzue Ashraf, Faizal Kamaruddin, Ikhwan Hakim, Ikhwan Fauzi, Dani Daniel, Khairul Ashraf, Azmir Ismail, Harith Iskandar, Fendi Akmal, etc amongst others.








If you guys could also help me with mass reporting these people to Facebook and MCMC that would be amazing!

Consider going to https://aduan.mcmc.gov.my to do so and clicking ‘report’ on their accounts.

Thanks!
V

This post has been edited by Exoflare: Nov 25 2024, 04:38 PM

How come they can do many fake account? I try to make fake account usually banned within hours

I do different browser, vpn, change ip, different emails, yet still they detect

all these fake and mull acc, you know i know....
it all started by u know who///
i am not saying master 1mdb, not saying bossku

Hmmm... want to start color revolution ah?

NED clearly not happy with this gomen.

Social media like fb, twitter, TikTok & etc lack of enforcement & moderation cause this.

But then u have China example of extreme restrictions eg. banning particular words towards certain leader.

Best I can think of is twitter verification so that ppl pay more attention to comment made by verified acc and ignore fake troll, verification being voluntary of course.

What shit you talking about? I can't even create new account as will get suspended or banned.

Even here lowyat don't allow fake account unless you have invite code.

Can be multiple computers and multiple people coordinating together rather than just one single individual.

So they engaged external party with $$$ again to do these type of things? Insaflah...

Religion has consequences.
Lots of idiots in a band wagon.

Your OpSec sucks.

Because you don't have cable.

not only here, is everywhere. The worst tiktok MY alot user got cancer and sampah content. Im not longer visit fb and tiktok MY. If looking for knowledge, harmony, best content go to douyin and redbook

Fake accounts aka cybertroopers are under media page comment section since a decade ago
Not until recently

But you and I can't do nothing.

I've reported more than a dozen scam ads, cybertroopers hate speech etc
Like our minister said, Meta just wont give a shit, and the minister were true.
The scam ads are here to stay, so with them.

This is why our Communication Minister wants to implement some control over social media. Exactly because of things like these. But noooo some people here say the Gov wants to become iron sickle. How lah?

General citizen have average intellectual and memory.
Put the new law and policies into context and citizen will happily dance to it.

One recent example was the passing of cyberbully law accompanied with the cases that were reported extensively during the same time.

all jkom account
u think only USA has deep state?

malaysia oso got albeit noob one

If those are fake accounts, then how come there is much confusion going on now? It is clear our gomen is very friendly with China now. But if you tell people the truth, they won't accept it.

They are 100% fake accounts. There are more than 15 of them. I’m also not seeing why what you’re saying is even tangentially related to what I said.

Yes, totally agree, some of these accounts are highly suspicious based on several aspects - their names, limited number of friends (also with weird names/photos), their profile mostly empty (before profiles can be locked, you can see they will just reshare posts to "show there's some activities", etc.

You do noticed it's funny when these accounts are Malay insulting their own kind.

Then we also have this topic which also claimed to be a Malay girl asking why Chagee has racial hiring preferences which doesn't hire Yindians.

Why no noise made regarding Chagee hiring process?

https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/5495912

The Twitter post has since been removed but we all know the type of people who is behind all these postings.

Chinese educated lots don't bother engaging and spending time on English forums and social media platforms. They have their own world and platforms such as Little Red Book and Douyin which blocks non China based phone numbers on posting on them.

So which leaves..

Malay can't be insulting their own and the Chinese aren't bothered to engage their views on English/Malay platforms. Which means..

This is the reason why China forced the implementation of social credit system and digital ID on its citizens to prevent these sort of fakes from inciting hate/trouble on social media platforms.

Australia will also start implementing digital ID and ban teens below 16 from social media access.

Sometimes to think of this implementation is not a bad thing because it prevents people from hiding behind fake accounts trying to stir trouble among the public.

China Douyin version of Tiktok restricts non China phone number to make posting on it. It is a very simple requirement, you want to post anything do it with responsibility and reveal yourself if you dare bring up a topic that might stir unrest and trouble in public.

Jokes aside or conspiracies but to make serious allegations in real life and bring up hate the person must come in front and show himself.

I myself have shutdown my Facebook and Meta based accounts which are filled with DEI nonsense trolls ever since COVID.
Probably the next one will be X(Twitter).

Somehow I feel much safer and trusts China's own social media such as WeChat and Douyin more than Western DEI based ones. They forced responsibility to whoever tries to make allegations or troll tying their people with social credit and their phone numbers.

No, it is to implement Group/Herd Thinking, which is the chief characteristic of Conmunism.

Are you ready for the M40 to have the rug pulled out from under their feet? Conmunism leaves only two classes of people. I'm sure you know that.

This post has been edited by Hobbez: Nov 25 2024, 10:24 PM

Fake troll accounts spreading hate posts to cause unrest in the country is always a big problem in China from Bharat.
They have more experience in dealing with this.

That is the main reason why China blocks almost entirely non China phone number owners from registering social media accounts there.

Miraculously, fake news from public posting is almost non existent there except for government sponsored propaganda which is the opposite.

Common rakyat who post false news next day will either go missing or the police will be at their door.

It would have been worse if they opened it up because foreigners will also participate in trolling.

There is good and bad for force digital ID/social credit score. Freedom of expression come with responsibility but it also promotes abuse/misuse.

It has always been this way since the existence of social media, not only during madani

You might want to watch this. He has very valid point.

I can't see clearly exactly because it's locked, and when I tried to report the profile, FB just returned me with an error lmfao.

Honestly though, how did you 100% confirm it's a fake account?

I now recall a report I actually took the effort the compile evidence and submitted to BNM earlier this May. It was a scam FB ad and I screenshotted and provided link to the ad library and whatnot. To my disappointment, BNM responded with a generic "pls beware". Like no shit Sherlock, I reported this so ofc I know it's bs? I took a peek for the next few weeks, it was just there so I gave up.

Now that I look for that ad again, the page and everything vanished from the internet, but BNM didn't update any alert list, I suppose it's because there was no company registration number(??)

Tbh I don't think my report did anything so it feels silly to try... do you have any success story to tell?

there was a report of paying $$$ for maintaining keyboard warriors previously

By looking at the account's past activities and motives.

If the person has been actively doing the same thing for years not out of sudden and with frequent family/friends outing pictures throughout his/her account creation,then chances are that he/she is real.

This is also the same behavior with sleeper/"perap" dupe accounts which suddenly out of nowhere coming out to troll is almost certain.

Dare to bring up accusations and allegations, do come out and face the challenge to the end.

They shouldn't be a non-existent character such as Jho Low in hiding and his "messengers".

The worst cowards are those hiding behind someone's else face and identity to spread hate and unrest among the public.

But the profiles are locked so how do you check? Suppose I want to report but I have no access to the evidence (like right now), will MCMC layan? And will I get a response to that?

I wanna know if there's any point for me to report so I know I'm not wasting my time

I don’t know what you're rambling about. Even Jho Low is being sheltered in China.

His point was if China has such great control over what the people are allowed to see, and think, then why do they allow animal abuse to proliferate on their internet with NO restrictions?

Is the CCP breeding and encouraging this psychopathy? With recent focus on local terrorism in China, although it has been going on longer than that, it makes you wonder....

So no, censorship has much more downside than it looks.

it has been this way due to anonymity. Remove anonymity and see how many people still dare to comment like that

That's why I don't visit any social sites other than /k, full of dupes and retards.

The more you should distrust then when someone displays intention to hide but posts big controversial claims or incitement in social media.

Like I said dare post, dare to stand up to challenge to uphold your claims.

The same goes with China's social credit score/local registered phone number requirement before you can open a social media account. This automatically block anyone who wants to post a claim or accusation but don't dare to reveal himself. Such claims and accusations usually doesn't hold water.

Anonymity subjected to be abused to troll and cause harm to others is not worth giving.

If you feel not safe to do whistleblowing, social media is not the place to do it. There are more safer direct channels.

What you suggested is the reason why China only allow local Chinese registered phone numbers to create Douyin accounts. The impressive result is that "anonymous" troll fake news is reduced to almost none.

You tell a lie to public big time next day not just the police will be hunting you, when you walk out on the streets everyone will come after you.

Glad I wasn't the only one noticed with the rise of these "fake" profiles commenting related to taking down government/racist comments. I have been avoiding major news outlet comments like Mkini, in fact I had tried to report some comments but mukabuku "can't tell" anything wrong with it.

Mukabuku can claim all they want with their high "active" users, when majority of them are all bots and fake accounts. Without those fakes, I bet it will be a dead artifact site.

Time to move to alternatives and lesser known but more reliable social media platforms such as Telegram, WeChat, GAB.com (emerging American MAGA alternative to mukabuku), X which censor less and DuckDuckGo/StartPage/QWant, VK.

This post has been edited by petpenyubobo: Nov 26 2024, 12:17 AM

Funny to see you justified the restrictions in China just because there are trolls and fake news elsewhere in the world

There's only one narrative allowed in China, people have limited freedom of expression and would get penalized even when they are posting truths but not aligned with the sentiments that CCP wants to portray

Meanwhile elsewhere in the world, we can have PN or PH cytros commenting and bashing in socmeds, each delivering their own narratives, you can say those accusing DAP as communists as fake accounts, but truth to be told that it is kinda sentiment in rural Malay community, likewise for Nons that typically label PAS as Talibans, so to each of their own, this is the norm in democracy

So you want unlimited freedom of expression to allow shadow "anonymous" mischief characters to feed you fake news or you want full accountability for claims?

Choose your poison.

I'm always a suspect of people who tries to give me advise but can't reveal themselves or hide behind other people's identities.

Just saying at least a straight forward person is less dangerous than a person who hides in shadows to talk to you.

Hi! Let me answer the success rate of reporting part – my next response is going to be quite long. I have had success in reaching the minister of communications and also have had success in reaching MCMC hotlines to have content taken down and also escalated to law enforcement.

As a matter of fact, minister Fahmi once assisted me in removing the account of a local Malay extremist, which was encouraging. MCMC can be a little bit slow in acting, though, but if you do report, then typically they have a cost to take action, and your report will add to the bank of reasons as to why it is that they need to take action.

Let me now talk about the idea of fake accounts.

If we want to be really technical about it, the term fake account doesn't really make sense and we need to actually break it down.

Rather than speak about whether an account is fake or is real in terms of existence, it makes more sense to think of what is real or is fake in terms of its behaviour: All accounts exist, but not all accounts represent the people that they claim to be, and I claim that what we would typically call a fake account is an account that's associated with a particular behaviour pattern that Facebook itself has mentioned, that is called inauthentic behaviour.

Here is the original report:

https://about.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/202...ort-Q2-2022.pdf

What is Inauthentic Behavior? Inauthentic behavior (IB), as detailed in our Community Standards, is an effort to mislead people or Facebook about the popularity of content, the purpose of a community (i.e. Groups, Pages, Events) or the identity of the people behind it. It is primarily centered around amplifying and increasing the distribution of content, and is often (but not exclusively) financially motivated.

It is most accurate to describe what's happening here with these accounts as what Facebook calls CIB, or Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior.

Facebook says of Coordinated inauthentic behavior (CIB) the following:

“We view CIB as coordinated efforts to manipulate public debate for a strategic goal, in which fake accounts are central to the operation. In each case, people coordinate with one another and use fake accounts to mislead others about who they are and what they are doing. When we investigate and remove these operations, we focus on behavior rather than content — no matter who's behind them, what they post or whether they're foreign or domestic.”

Based on what I can see, the behaviour pattern of these accounts is to do two main things.

First, they repeatedly comment on contentious posts across news sites, such as recently the signboard issue, and recently the visit from the Taliban to the Education Ministry.

From there, they start structuring a narrative by criticising specific individuals, almost always in association with a political party.

For example, they will go around repeatedly criticising DAP, as they have done with Tiong King Sing, Anthony Loke, etc.

The second thing that they do is that they like one another's comments, and so they end up creating the impression of mass engagement, because sometimes there can be more than 10 likes in the course of 10 minutes for a comment on an article or something.

The result of these two things is that whenever anyone visits Facebook and views the article, they will see that there is a large number of likes or engagements on the bot's comments, creating the impression that a huge number of people are against DAP or whatever it is that the bots are trying to target.

Now, for the idea of fake accounts once again, the fake accounts, as I'd call them, misleads people about who is actually behind the account by putting in a name that is not guaranteed to actually be owned by the original person, and in any case cannot be verified in the same way that a social media profile of a real person can be, and an AI-generated profile picture is placed there as well, which further obfuscates things, because AI-generated profile pictures have a similarity to reality that you might not notice if you don't look close up - the thing is that they also lock their accounts so you can't really zoom in on the profile picture, so it's easy for you to mistake them for something else.

Anyway, that's how I use the idea of a fake account, or how I understand it. I think it's a really huge threat to Malaysia, and I really hope that something can be done about it. :/

According to Meta the one that actually pushing bots and fake accounts and trying to influence the social media political discussion is the government themselves

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 5 — Meta, the parent company behind Facebook and Instagram, said in a recent report it had identified and removed over 600 accounts across all its social network platforms for violating the policy against "coordinated inauthentic behaviour”, with most of them alleged to be part of a "troll farm” to corrupt or manipulate public discourse using fake accounts

You can read it here…

https://www.malaymail.com/amp/news/malaysia...to-police/21241

You didn’t realise because these ‘bots’ didn’t posting negative news about your favourite political party.

In the end how on earth you talking about democracy when yourself supporting the use of government agencies to eliminate any ‘negative’ comments that not favourable to your favourite political party? Sounds like what Putin will do actually

Actually that news was in August 2022, which had the previous government in power. Not saying the current is clean but I did try to check Meta's transparency report
https://transparency.meta.com/en-gb/metasec...hreat-reporting
Downloading each quarter pdf from 2024 Q2 (latest available now) back to 2022, I only found keyword "Malaysia" hit in 2022 Q2 report, which says the exact same thing as the news you posted. That means the CIB/fake trolls were caught in Apr-Jun 2022...

Now the most recent thing I could find about Meta actioning against Malaysian-related content was this 2023 report: https://transparency.meta.com/reports/conte...ons/country/MY/
Since there was no hit in the CIB report, that means the 2023 action was not found by Meta to be CIB, but rather real(?**) humans violating policies/Malaysian law by spreading hate speech.

**Now we all know Meta ain't the best in dealing with these because all our reports apparently never yield any result and everyone is clean, you're just sensitive... But I just want to point out there's dirt on all sides.

Yes, the current government may seem hati tisu as they pressed Meta to clean up in 2023, as above. But with this thread, I can understand their frustration as you can see that one of these criticisms is fake and it's targeting them. I'd say the government is looking at the problem from the wrong angle: the point is to silence the fake voices, not the criticisms.

Psyops vs psyops. Nobody really knows who’s the actor behind those comments. Can be from kini as well cuz they have incentive to change current gov.

This post has been edited by culvers: Nov 27 2024, 02:16 AM

Your argument is plausible, but ultimately if you inspect it, you realize that it doesn't make sense.

First of all, you assume that the reason I didn't respond is because I have a favorite political party. The problem is, you have no idea what my favorite political party is. Didn’t catch that did you?

You didn't bother to check, and perhaps you have a motive in claiming that the reason I'm opposing this is purely because I disagree with the current action.

My opposing this does not involve opposing democracy. Because what I'm trying to do is to stop massive groups of AI bots from swaying the narrative in general. And it doesn't matter whether they are for BN, for DAP, for PH, or for PAS/Bersatu because it is wrong either way but your low quality critical thinking skills, it seems, would have us believe that opposing any threat to Malaysia is an attempt at ‘curtailing democracy’.

I’m not surprised that Malaysia is a weak nation given people like you.

This in turn makes me wonder if you are associated with the current manipulation operation or if you are just an overly woke yapper who likes to think that he is plucked out from the matrix and is now super special. Because he has watched a few dramas and can now say that there is no good or evil.

Well, stop watching The Dark Knight multiple times and come back to reality because the current situation is materially different. And regardless of the political party that is in charge of this, or if not political party then individual or organization, it is something that needs to be stopped.

Stop downplaying things just because you're too tuned in to being a member of the woke class, please. Reality is now in session and the Malaysian people are being manipulated.

I'm not completely sure where you're trying to go with your comment and frankly I don’t understand most of it in the way that it is written, but thanks for the effort in reading through all of the Meta threat reports.

To focus us back, yes, the main point is this.

Legitimate criticism of the government is quite possible and in fact should be encouraged and I engage in a fair bit of it. However, there is an agency or entity or group of disgruntled individuals who are going out on Malaysian social media and using fake voices in order to discredit the government and doing so on a mass scale that showcases that it is organized and also is fake in that the names and identities of the individuals involved are likely fabricated.

This is not legitimate criticism. It is large scale deception and it doesn’t matter which political party or entity it comes from - it should be stopped.

P.S. Legitimate criticism is not particularly hard to do so given the wonderful activities that our our great leader has recently been taking part in and his refusal to step in in the constellation of contentious matters that have come up under his administration, namely sockgate, Israelgate, sijilgate, and now signboardgate.

Not too different from how wars have come up during the Biden and Harris administration and one of the reasons that I recently made this video:

The Disturbing Similarities of Anwar Ibrahim and Kamala Harris
https://youtu.be/oswxzyrdlvw