Fake news and hatred on the Internet. “The whereabouts of these people are known”

A few weeks ago, fake news appeared on the Internet announcing the death of journalist Omena Mensah, as well as information about the alleged violence of her husband, entrepreneur Rafał Brzoska. The scammers also used his image and voice to extort money before writing about his wife’s death or that he beat her.

Representatives from various sectors of society and the professional community appeal to the Minister of Justice Adam Bodnar Take decisive action to combat the spread of fake news and hate speech in virtual spaces. This open letter was initiated and signed by more than 200 entrepreneurs, business organization representatives and media.

Signatories also include Kasia Kieli, President and Managing Director of Warner Bros. Discovery Poland and TVN CEO, and Michał Samul, Editor-in-Chief of TVN24 and “Fakty” TVN. Piotr Konieczny, founder of the Polish cybersecurity website Niebezpiecznik.pl, spoke on TVN24 about cybercrime attacks and online hate.

When asked who are the people who spread videos with false information on the Internet, such as the death of a celebrity, Konieczny pointed out that the authors of these videos are well known.

– The whereabouts of these people are known. The only problem is that they are outside the Polish judicial system and the judicial systems of most countries. These are our eastern colleagues from across the eastern border who are simply engaged in financial fraud. Because these films actually present all kinds of shocking, dramatic events, false events, but they have a specific goal – say the expert.

– Contrary to appearances, this is not to defame the people whose images are used, although of course this is not good for them. This is also to convince the Poles and others Czech RepublicBulgarian, Wingrove He said they invest their money and savings in fake financial services which in turn just extort money, presenting a false vision that the money will be able to multiply.

When it comes to online fraud, experts note that we are dealing with a “multi-layered problem.”

– Of course, it would be better to have an educated society that, if it sees a very famous athlete, politician or journalist praising anything, any product, would ask itself whether this person can really praise such a product, whether this product can be trusted, and not whether you can immediately trust your life savings to a company or buy anything. This is our upbringing, our very poor education and, most importantly, the lack of critical thinking, and I think this is also a bit specific to the times we live in. Because we have very little time today – says Konieczny.

Now people do not read all articles in detail, do not analyze the content themselves, do not find sources, the head of niebezpiecznik.pl said. – We trust editorial offices and journalists to do this for us, we know that not all editorial offices pay so much attention to this, and the lack of critical thinking leads us into these problems, – he pointed out, while adding that this is the other side of the problem.

– The platforms have a great responsibility here, not only Meta, the owner of Facebook or Instagram, but also Google, the owner of YouTube, because such fake ads using images of celebrities have been appearing on these platforms for years, and these specific people and their relatives have been reporting them for years (…), but nothing happened – said Konieczny, adding that from his own experience he knows that after such reports we often receive messages from Facebook saying, no, this ad does not violate our standards, it will continue to be shown and will continue to rob Poles and others of their savings.

– Therefore, the hope here may lie in politicians and the law to finally have some discussion about those platforms that make money on our market, but do not fully follow the rules of the game that should prevail when it comes to the safety of users of these sites – he noted.

Asked what actions should be taken, Konieczny said that, most importantly, more money needs to be invested in the work of human moderators.

– The website uses an automated content moderation system, and there is no doubt that such a system is needed. However, it is a bit strange that the company behind one of the most popular and advanced AI models today could not create an algorithm that could easily detect that it is not Rafał Brzoska who directs you to the expert who said that one of the TVs is on a completely different domain than the real TV site, and the whole fraud mechanism is exactly the same, noting that the website to which these ads point “is made for one thing”. – It is indeed easy to learn such a pattern, but here these advanced algorithms are powerless – he stressed.

Konieczny believes digital platforms should be forced to spend at least some of their profits on moderators and those who have explicit instructions to do so.

– When they see an ad that clearly encourages them to waste their life savings, they come to the conclusion that it is worth removing such an ad from the display, rather than ensuring that it continues to bring material benefits to the site – said the TVN24 guest.

When asked about the second element of the letter to Minister Bodnar, which concerns hate speech and its impunity, Konieczny noted that “basically, there are no technical or legal measures that can unfortunately put an end to this hatred.”

– Today we live in a world where everyone can be anonymous, since complete anonymity is reserved for a few. But having enough anonymity, without a criminal record, allows you to harass other people with impunity. Unfortunately, this will always be possible, so in my opinion, the only thing left for us is to remove this content, which means, again, more effective moderation with a quick response, to quickly remove this content, and even, unfortunately, something more tedious, which is to properly educate all of us, the new generations, so that they can resist hatred, to show that this is a phenomenon that is unfortunately associated with the Internet – he noted.

Konieczny said people need to be taught to “deal with this and maybe ignore it, indicating that out of 100 people who read something on the Internet, one spews venom, but the fact is that 99 ignore it or applaud such an idea, but unlike this hater, he has no time to waste and destroy the blood of the authors of such content.

– Learning critical thinking and understanding how the internet works can help those who feel hatred deal with this phenomenon, which is unfortunately all too common – he said.

The head of niebezpiecznik.pl noted that despite calls to change the law to make it easier to prosecute haters, it is not as easy as it seems.

– The thing is that in order to be able to track a person by this mysterious IP address, you need to understand how the technology works. In many cases, it does not matter if the police managed to identify the IP address of the perpetrator (i.e. the author of a specific malicious, insulting, harassing comment) if the operator responds that even if hundreds of people used the same IP address on the site. At the same time – he explains.

– In Poland, there is no obligation to record the so-called source ports, I am talking about something very technical here, this is actually the reason why it is extremely difficult to determine the IP address of a specific perpetrator, even if you get to the IP address. After all, someone’s computer can be taken over and hacked, someone can use his IP address, his device and insult other people, he added.