Everyday Erinyes #168

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”

When David and Barbara Mikkelson got divorced, I admit I was concerned about the future of Snopes dot com. David had founded it in 1994, but Barbara had been doing most of the writing, and apparently, most of the fact checking. But, as it turned out, there was actually no cause for concern.

When the site was founded, it was mostly focused on fact-checking urban legends. I always felt it was scrupulously honest, using such gradations as “Partly True” and “Mostly False” in addition to the obvious “True” and “False,” and thus giving at a glance a more accurate picture of reality than most.

After the dust had settled from all the changes, and now that it is actually owned by an entity called “Snopes Media Group” – although David is still there – and has added staff substantially:

Now our team of researchers, writers, developers, and support staff is probably greater than you can fit in a large passenger van, although we haven’t scientifically tested that yet.

it has become a force to be reckoned with.

My attention was drawn to it recently by an article (“diary”) in Daily Kos which cited a “must-read” article at Snopes. I would say the Snopes article is indeed a must-read for anyone who wants to be familiar with the details of how Facebook (along with other social media) is being used, not just to spread misinformation, but to make it so ingrained in the minds of those who fall for it, that it becomes almost impossible to communicate the truth.

This article, by Alex Kasprak (everything is by-lined at Snopes; no one hides behind anonymity, and all sources are linked), reports on a two-month-long investigation Alex did into

a small group of radical evangelical Christians that re-purposed Facebook pages and PACs to build a coordinated, pro-Trump network that spreads hate and conspiracy theories.

The page names imply groups, and the names put together imply diverse groups – at least, sort of diverse. But all the pages – Alex found 24 and suspects there may be more – can be tied to one person. That person is Kelly Monroe Kullberg. Kullberg is neither black nor Jewish, despite both of those groups showing up in some of the group names. Another group which turns up is women – and I’m sad to sad that apparently Kelly is a woman, though she doesn’t appear to be a “senior” (another group) and I doubt she’s a veteran (another group), although that, alas, is not impossible.

Watch the GIF to see a string of group names. The GIF is from all of those pages, and more.

Snopes refers to this collection of pages as “the Kullberg network,” and also found that there is one prominent GOP donor (there may be more, but they found one) funding (and possibly exploiting) the network. That donor is William Millis, a fundraiser and board member for the 2016 Presidential campaign of Ben Carson.

Facebook’s terms of use forbid “coordinated inauthentic behavior.”

Why is this important?

• The network serves to influence public opinion by presenting the views of a small group of activists as representative of a much broader swath of the American populace.
• Their strategy amplifies and offers a veil of legitimacy to hatred and conspiracy theories.
• In spite of these strategies awash in misinformation, the pages within the network have attracted the financial backing of well-heeled political donors who exploit these pages and groups to disguise the origin of political Facebook ads. 

Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone., the good news is that you don’t need to do anything. An update from Snopes states that all 24 of the pages they identified as being in the Kullberg network have been taken down. It’s true that Facebook has not directly responded to any of Snopes’ requests for comment. It’s also true that there may be more pages in the network than Snopes was able to identify. It’s also true that there are other “networks” out there preaching the same hate. But I don’t know enough to send you after any of them. And Snopes seems to be doing a pretty good job.

My original link to the investigation was to the summary article. If anyone wants to dig deeper into the subject, the full background is HERE.

The Furies and I will be back.

Cross posted to Care2 HERE.