12/22/21, 10:01 PM How Facebook and Google fund global misinformation | MIT Technology Review ads on nearly 2,000 videos across these channels. “We continue to actively monitor our platforms to prevent bad actors looking to abuse our network for profit,” she said. Then there are other tools, including one that allows prerecorded videos to appear as fake Facebook Live videos. Another randomly generates profile details for US men, including image, name, birthday, Social Security number, phone number, and address, so yet another tool can mass-produce fake Facebook accounts using some of that information. It’s now so easy to do that many Cambodian actors operate solo. Rio calls them microentrepreneurs. In the most extreme scenario, she’s seen individuals manage as many as 11,000 Facebook accounts on their own. Successful micro-entrepreneurs are also training others to do this work in their community. “It’s going to get worse,” she says. "Any Joe in the world could be affecting your information environment without you realizing.” Profit over safety During her Senate testimony in October of this year, Haugen highlighted the fundamental flaws of Facebook’s content-based approach to platform abuse. The current strategy, focused on what Subscribe she 2 free stories remaining in comprehensive, can and cannot appear on the platform, can only be reactive and Sign never https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/11/20/1039076/facebook-google-disinformation-clickbait/ 22/27