Paul Bouchaud @P_Bouchaud Twitter profile

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Paul Bouchaud

2 months

While skimming through tens of Doppelgänger ads recently approved by Meta, for a total reach over 200k users in France, Germany, Italy, and Poland over the past two weeks, I stumbled upon an interesting slip-up in one of their ads 👇

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

2 months

In the foreground, we see the image they likely wanted to use, sent by an "Алина Малинина" via their VK Teams . On the left, there are distinct discussion channels for the countries targeted by the Doppelgänger operations: Ukraine, Germany, France, Israel, US, Italy, and Poland.

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

2 months

Instead of uploading the desired image, they accidentally uploaded a screenshot of it, took last Friday, revealing their VK Teams interface in the background. After a loooooong process of enhancing the compressed image, I managed to decipher it 👀

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

2 months

With @aiforensics_org we published multiple reports revealing Meta's systemic failure in ads moderation and the massive scale of the operation. Also, big thanks to @antibot4navalny for their amazing work monitoring Doppelgänger bots on X and helping analyze these findings!

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

2 months

The French discussion channel, “S-ф”, was open, revealing a conversation on the right. Алина and colleagues shared a link to a fake @le_Parisien article and messages that seem to read: “Changed the text of the task to 'You […] that Ukraine can win […] the war? I don’t'.”

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

2 months

Their choice of logos is quite telling: a beer for Germany, cheese for France pizza for Italy and Winnie-the-Pooh for their channel dedicated to websites and animations🧸.

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

2 months

It shows multiple targeted countries, organized teamwork, and a multi-faceted approach involving ads on Meta (which has neglected to address systemically) and spoofed news outlets shared on X.

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

2 months

Without overstating the findings (and acknowledging the possibility of a trap), this screenshot, extracted from a Doppelgänger Meta ad published last Friday, supports our current understanding of their operations.

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

2 months

Алина appears to actively work on well-defined tasks, using VK Teams ‘Task’ functionality.

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

4 months

Over the past week, Meta approved and delivered pro-Russian propaganda ads to more than 413,000 accounts. No systemic measures appear to have been implemented to safeguard the integrity of the upcoming EU elections ! #breaktheglass

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

3 months

Meta approved and delivered to thousands of French accounts Doppelgänger ads calling to vote for far-right candidates on Sunday, with xenophobic and anti-EU narratives. Playing hide-and-seek with threat actors instead of a systematic fix unsurprisingly fails.

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

3 months

After publishing its Adversarial Threat Report on Wednesday, Meta approved new pro-Russian propaganda ads to run on Thursday, which linked to spoofed domains impersonating news media. No systemic measures appear to have been implemented to moderate political advertisements

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

2 months

Wanna bypass Meta's 'state-of-the-art' moderation systems? Use emojis! Last week, Meta reviewed, approved, and delivered doppelgänger propaganda ads with a total reach exceeding 200k in France alone!

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

9 months

🚨Influential, yet unexplored. I'm thrilled to share my preprint exploring Amazon's recommender systems! Mapping the book recommendation landscape, we find tight communities, making it tricky for users to break free.

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

4 months

🚨 After our recent study revealed Meta's flawed moderation of political ads, enabling massive foreign interference weeks ahead of the elections, the EU Commission is launching an investigation into potential Digital Services Act violations.

Thierry Breton

@ThierryBreton

4 months

Today we open cases against #Meta for suspected breach of #DSA obligations to protect integrity of elections: ▪️Inadequate ad moderation exploited for foreign interference & scams ▪️Inadequate data access to monitor elections ▪️Non-compliant tool for flagging illegal content

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

3 months

With the French snap elections in less than two weeks, Meta seems not to have implemented any systemic fixes. They recently approved Doppelgänger ads congratulating the far-right for their EU election results, framing it as revenge for Macron's support of Ukraine.

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

5 months

With the EU elections just weeks out, Meta still neglects to enforce its political ads policy, allowing covert political ops, including massive pro-Russian propaganda. A long thread 🧵

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

3 months

"After all, sanctions, inflation and wars are no reason to give up on your appearance." This new Doppelgänger clone is being promoted by ads on Meta and has been shown at least 60k times since Friday to at least 50k unique French accounts so far.

bot blocker | блокировщик ботов

@antibot4navalny

3 months

🧵 Women's magazine on well-being has just got a Doppelgänger clone. "At times of sanctions, inflation and wars, here are beauty tips with inexpensive home-made products." Who said that Kremlin is most stupid and straightforward in its propaganda? Your feedback was heard. 1/

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

2 months

Curious how their Generative AI pipeline can be this bad. Also, why specifically targeting Marseille?

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

3 months

Cette campagne s'inscrit dans la continuité des efforts cross-plateform de Doppelganger. Le mois dernier, Meta avait approuvé des publicités similaires.

David Colon

@Colon_David

3 months

Le collectif @antibot4navalny a identifié une nouvelle campagne de #d ésinformation anti-ukrainienne. Les Bots du Kremlin ont diffusé 120 000 messages avec fausses citations de célébrités dont Alain #Delon , Lea #Seydoux , Luc #Besson , Elizabeth #Debicki et Michelle #Mercier

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

2 months

Following psychologies[.]top's tips on looking like a princess despite wars and inflation, Doppelgänger has now spoofed closermag[.]eu. Thanks to Meta's advertising systems, they delivered to thousands of users 'life advice' that 'even Mr. Great Depression Macron can't ruin'

Secure Chicken 🐣

@securechicken

2 months

closermag[.]eu conspiracywatch[.]in mensjournal[.]day mynaszlaku[.]in dzieckowpodrozy[.]in bibelbund[.]cfd Also, new Doppelgänger tracker (July 15) we got from our monitoring: gatoogeef[.]info - 2/2

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

9 months

Misleading search results, user confinement, and the recommendation of sexual content, with @aiforensics_org and @CheckFirstHQ we analyzed Amazon's bookstore algorithms within the DSA framework. Check it out!

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

3 months

Meta’s Ad Review and Moderation in action..

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

4 months

Less than 4 weeks to the EU elections and @Meta is still letting foreign interference slide on its ads platform! If we can detect these campaigns, so should Meta. Time to step up and act on the commitment to "preserve the integrity of these elections on our platforms."

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

2 months

Now that the Poland logo channel has been identified (thanks @alex___liberty ), one mystery remains: Why would Russian propagandists mention John Galt? Any clues?

bot blocker | блокировщик ботов

@antibot4navalny

2 months

Here is channel picture for Poland, as identified by @alex___liberty : (attn @P_Bouchaud @MarcelKieltyka )

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

9 months

🔍 We've identified a large community of books co-recommended by Amazon promoting climate denialism, COVID-19 conspiracy theories, and conservative views on gender. Explore Amazon's recommendation landscape for yourself at

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

4 months

Besides propaganda suggesting the EU might send troops to Ukraine to boost U.S. arms sales, Meta is also allowing pro-Russian ads claiming @EmmanuelMacron would rather spend billions on Ukraine than help single mothers

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

5 months

Overall, we estimate that about 2/3 of political ads fly under the radar, undeclared, with Meta catching less than 5% of them.

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

11 months

Delighted to share the publication in @SciReports of my first PhD paper, a crowdsourced audit of Twitter’s recommender systems!

Crowdsourced audit of Twitter’s recommender systems

Scientific Reports - Crowdsourced audit of Twitter’s recommender systems

www.nature.com

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

2 months

And here are a couple of Doppelgänger Meta ads.

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

5 months

Thanks to the DSA, we now have access to all ads targeting EU countries. As analyzed by @CheckFirstHQ with @mozilla , Meta's Ad library is quite complete, compared to X's.

Mozilla commissions CheckFirst to conduct a stress test of Ad Repositories - CheckFirst

We’re proud to publish today together with the Mozilla Foundation the first comprehensive report on the state of ad libraries which have emerged or been strengthened by requirements under the...

checkfirst.network

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

4 months

@Meta @Meta considers the content of this ad to be against their Advertising Standards, yet this pro-Kremlin propaganda ad has been shown to 252,528 accounts, and is still running.

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

3 months

Article relayed by bots on X and spotted by @antibot4navalny

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

2 months

@SourcesOuvertes @Colon_David Ce compte a également massivement promu cet article en mai dernier via X Ads, exposant 81k utilisateurs uniques (109k vues)

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

5 months

I trained a model to classify whether an ad should be declared as political under Meta's political ads policy. Then applied it over 30 million ads published in January-February 2024 in 16 EU countries.

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

3 months

"We have a well-established process for identifying and mitigating risks on our platforms" @Meta

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

3 months

As the EU elections are coming up this Sunday, let's take a closer look at the French political discussion on X. By pulling together reposts from politicians and activists, we see a similar structure as the one reported in 2023 by @ISCPIF

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

5 months

Hey @Meta , what measures are you implementing to prevent foreign interference ? There appears to be room for improvement in your detection of coordinated inauthentic behaviors. #DSA

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

2 months

The spoofed article is archived here

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

3 months

In the final days of the EU campaign, Meta kept failing to detect undeclared political ads during their initial review, allowing the spread of propaganda to EU citizens.

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

4 months

Hey @Meta , why don't you apply your moderation decisions systematically across duplicated ads ? Your lax enforcement of your own advertisement policies allows pro-Kremlin propaganda ads to be run weeks ahead of the EU elections

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

5 months

Meta is aware of these scams, widely reported in the news, and thoroughly investigated by @CheckFirstHQ in June 2023, who communicated their findings directly to Meta's security teams.

Facebook Hustles: The Hidden Mechanics of a Scam Machinery Impersonating News Organisations and...

In an extensive month-long investigation, our team has unearthed a large-scale scam operation, recruiting its victims on Facebook through ads. This eye-opening discovery not only reveals the sheer...

checkfirst.network

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

5 months

Hey @MetaFrance , comment ces publicités de propagande pro-russe peuvent-elles échapper à vos systèmes de modération des publicités politiques ? #DSA

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

4 months

@Meta Beyond disinformation and pro-Russian propaganda, Meta now approves vote instructions against @EmmanuelMacron for the June 9 EU elections without political disclaimer

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

1 year

📢 New Preprint exploring Members of Parliament reach in algorithmic timelines using engagement predictive models! Do right-wing parties benefit more from engagement-based recommender than left-wing parties ? It depends on how you measure amplification!

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

4 months

Hey @Meta , why did you just approve these pro-Kremlin propaganda ads to be run without a political disclaimer ? Are your systems fooled by a simple nickname to designate @EmmanuelMacron ?

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

5 months

ii) Doppelgänger! Since August 2023, we detect nearly 4k ads relaying pro-Russian propaganda, with a total reach over 38 million accounts in France and Germany.

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

3 months

Besides coordinated behaviors, how on earth can Meta review and approve this ad? #DSA

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

2 months

@NW28600848 They systemically target 'woman' with different age ranges but always 32 and beyond. 'Women between 55-64' are the most reached, with a total of over 11k.

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

3 months

In posts about Israel-Palestine: the left condemns the action of Israeli military and demands adherence to international law, while the presidential majority and (far)-right-leaning groups echo messages from the Israeli embassy and criticize pro-Palestine protests at SciencesPo.

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

8 months

Amazon and Fnac algorithms tend to deliver like-minded content to users. Rather than mere technical tweaks, we argue, with @BuseCett , that systemic changes are needed to mitigate their impact on civic discourse.

Auditing Amazon Recommender Systems: Insights Into Risk Assessment Under The Digital Services Act |...

Raziye Buse Çetin and Paul Bouchaud consider repercussions of a lack of diversity in book recommendations as a possible source of risk to information integrity.

www.techpolicy.press

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

3 months

Interestingly, they use the same illustration as in this spoofed Le Point (.WF) article.

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

6 months

The empirical grounding of this work provides a basis for evidence-based policies aimed at fostering responsible social media platforms.

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

6 months

Thrilled to announce the publication of my latest research in the Journal of Computational Social Science. I explore how engagement-based recommender systems affect the diversity of content displayed to users on social media.

Skewed perspectives: examining the influence of engagement maximization on content diversity in...

Journal of Computational Social Science - This article investigates the information landscape shaped by curation algorithms that seek to maximize user engagement. Leveraging unique behavioral data,...

link.springer.com

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

5 months

The narratives and volume of the campaign evolve with (inter)national events. The propagandists weaponize news events, such as the farmers protests and military aid packages, to undermine support for Ukraine and institutional support in the EU.

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

5 months

These coordinated campaigns are quite easy to spot, the proof, I did it with only a fraction of the information available to Meta. The pages are used a single time to publish an advertisement and have common name generation patterns.

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Paul Bouchaud

@P_Bouchaud

5 months