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   13 barn owls in a trenchcoat (hauntedowlbear@eldritch.cafe)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Dec-2023 08:01:51 JST 13 barn owls in a trenchcoat

   This, from 404 media, is a super read on a wave of AI photo fakery on Facebook. It's nuanced and considered, and worth your time.

   https://www.404media.co/facebook-is-being-overrun-with-stolen-ai-generated-images-that-people-think-are-real/

   I also notice that this trend follows the same patterns of scam content that I identified when I was investigating YouTube's enabling of animals cruelty and fake rescue content a few years ago, and fake Indigenous and Black activist pages before that:

   • The pages always have names of a type (here we see Be Amazed, Amazing World, Follow Me).
   • They always churn content at vast rates, with vapid and often incorrect accompanying text, usually in the first person.-And they cultivate a community if commenters who always respond to each image as though a real person is posting their own work.

   Now, I'm pretty trusting/gullible - tell me something to my face and I'll presume you're truthful unless I'm given reason to think otherwise.

   But these are operations seeking out marks. Accumulating followers who don't ask too many questions about what they see on the internet.

   Successful pages and channels are worth money. They're bought, sold and hired. They can be leveraged for anything from advertising bucks, to flogging cheap mercy, to targeting propaganda.

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     13 barn owls in a trenchcoat (hauntedowlbear@eldritch.cafe)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Dec-2023 18:09:16 JST 13 barn owls in a trenchcoat

     in reply to

     • pon

     @spinning_bird Oh yeah, that's absolutely part of it, and certainly helps to build scam pages' influence and algorithmic weighting, but I'm also really interested in the people go out of their way to interact with the contact, and the way in which the pages draw them in.

     Posting cheap photo fakery (AI or otherwise) feels to me a lot like that stage hypnotist's trick where they see whose hands get stuck together on suggestion - it's an entry bar that feels designed to draw in the credulous.

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     pon (spinning_bird@mstdn.games)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Dec-2023 18:09:18 JST pon

     in reply to

     @HauntedOwlbear This says something about the way some people interact with social media. If you look for 2 seconds, you'll notice the AI artifacts, but it seems many will just stop scrolling barely long enough to hit the like button?
     It's funny that this is called "engagement".