The link for this important article on Medium.com appeared on my radar via a post on the "AI Spotting" Facebook page. Here's the link: https://medium.com/adventures-in-consumer-technology/is-your-facebook-feed-full-of-ai-generated-junk-too-a2d8c40325cb
And the text of the entire article...
IS YOUR FACEBOOK FEED FULL OF AI GENERATED JUNK
TOO?
By
Shannon Steidel
Published
in Adventures in Consumer Technology
1.30.24
https://medium.com/adventures-in-consumer-technology/about
--------------------------------------------
“Maybe
you still check your Facebook account every day like it’s 2011. Maybe you
haven’t checked it in years or even deactivated it.
As
much as people want to claim that Facebook is “dead,” the social network still
boasts an impressive two billion daily users and three billion active users who
check in at least once a month.
“But
those are all old people,” you say.
True,
Facebook’s main demographic skews older than its counterparts like Instagram
and TikTok. And that’s what makes the recent AI takeover all the more
concerning.
The
new algorithm
In
its heyday, Facebook used to feel much more like a tight-knit club. By starting
out as a social media platform just for college kids, there was already an air
of exclusivity. Users were quick to send dozens of friend requests so they
could like, comment, poke, and tag their favorite people.
Up
until recently, there was also an end to your newsfeed. Once you got caught up
on all of the newest pictures and status updates and started recognizing the
old stuff, you could rest assured that you were up to date on everyone’s lives
and close your laptop or switch to a different app.
Of
course, this is the last thing a social media platform really wants.
A
better algorithm includes content from other sources outside of the friends and
pages that you follow to keep you scrolling. By mixing in content that is
“suggested for you” with friend’s posts and ads, people stay on Facebook
longer, and more revenue is generated.
Content
mills can’t seem to crank out enough content
With
these changes, Facebook pages are more incentivized than ever to post more
content and keep their engagement high. So, how do you spot the difference
between a legitimate page and AI-created garbage? As of right now, it’s still
pretty simple.
1.Everyone
has the smoothest skin you’ve ever seen
Not
every AI image is designed to look extremely realistic. It’s not unusual for
content farms to recreate a celebrity’s picture in a smooth, more art-like
style with just a dash of uncanny valley.
Other
images are a little harder to identify upon first glance, but still relatively
easy. Which one of these images was uploaded to Twitter by Jim Carrey, and
which one was altered in an AI generator and posted to a weird Facebook page?
But
why alter them at all? Why not just repost the original picture? Most likely,
it’s a quick and easy way to help avoid copyright infringement as well as spam
filters.
2.
The comments are very nice, very short, and very fake
Because
— they’re written by bots of course! Why else would these random pictures all
have thousands upon thousands of likes and comments?
3.
The content is just plain weird
Posting
about celebrities and movies makes sense. It’s easy to grab pictures of famous
actors from Google, run them through an AI program, and hope that nostalgia
gets attention and engagement from at least a few real people.
Interestingly,
there’s a random trend of AI content farms posting pictures of giant ice and
wooden sculptures with their artists (who are also not real of course). This is
probably because it’s just realistic enough to be believable, but wild enough
to catch the precious attention of Facebook scrollers. Other popular options
include kids holding pictures of art they made, military personnel, and of
course, inspirational quotes.
And
before you try to argue why the below image could be real, I’d invite you to
take a closer look at the artist’s right hand (a classic AI dead giveaway!)
Who
cares if Facebook is more cluttered than ever?
Facebook
frequently receives jabs from its users and haters alike. However, it does
offer unique qualities that make it worth using, at least for some.
Facebook
groups offer an opportunity for users to connect with people they know in real
life as well as people from around the world. While other platforms are more
about influencers talking at you, joining Facebook groups can allow for real
connection with others, which was the whole point of social media once upon a
time.
Facebook
Marketplace has also become a hugely popular way for users to buy and sell
items, perhaps because it feels just a hair safer than Craigslist.
Shady
origins
Additionally,
these content generators do not always create their pages from scratch.
Building a popular social media page requires time, work, and dedication, and
it should be clear by now that content farms are not interested in any of those
things.
If
you scroll back far enough, you may discover that an AI-filled page once
belonged to someone else and was hacked and rebranded. The hacker will remove
the admins, change the name of the page, begin posting AI generated junk, and
won’t even bother to delete the old content, which could be anything from a
band’s past tour dates to pictures of dogs that were available for adoption.
What’s
worse, Meta has limited authority, and maybe interest, in helping the thousands
of people whose accounts are hacked and/or cloned every year. That popular page
you spent years building? It’s now just a collection of smooth-skinned
celebrities unfortunately.
Fooling
users
No
conversation about AI is complete without discussing the ramifications of
tricking people into thinking that an image is real.
Yes,
most of these images are more or less harmless
Yes,
these pages have to abide by Facebook’s guidelines to ensure that their content
is not only approved, but shown to the masses.
But
it’s still disturbing to think about just how much social media content is now
entirely fabricated. Filters and photoshop don’t hold a candle to AI programs
that can create a completely new picture out of images it sourced from the
internet.
Let’s
hope that Meta can begin to crack down on this issue for the sake of its users.”
