Facebook is paying people to make AI crap
Marco van Hurne
I build Agentic AI companies | Data Science Strategist @ Beyond the Cloud | Data Governance | AI Compliance Officer Certified
Confession time, people:
Question A: Who still uses Facebook ?
(answers in the comments please)
Question B: Who has ever liked a picture of a sad looking dog | child | disabled person ?
To be honest, I still do.
First, I am gen X (not that this is an excuse, but I am not the TikTok kinda guy), Second, I must secretly admin that I sometimes like to just doomscroll a bit.
I am just one of the 3 Billion users, mostly generation X, who daily visits Fb.
And because of my kind of people, Facebook has been playing a dirtly little game.
The Zuck recently admitted he wants their algorithm to churn out AI generated slop more often (images, video's), tailor made to your preferences. See the article on it: The Zuck described my personal AI dystopia
404 Media caught Facebook red handed, paying people in the east to produce AI generated muck.
Before we start!
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404 Media did some deep diving into the cesspool that is Facebook
And as it turns out it's a veritable swamp of AI-generated garbage that's being pumped out by scammers, and the Facebook's algorithms are just swallowing it like it's the greatest thing since E=MC^2.
404 Media did some serious digging and discovered that Facebook isn't turning a blind eye to this AI sludge—they're actually paying people to create it.
You read that right.
Facebook is doling out cash to creators in countries like India Vietnam and the Philippines.
Over there folks are figuring out how to spew out these grotesque images by watching YouTube influencers and following Telegram guides what people like, how they can get them to hit the like button, and how to convert as well.
Take this one guy for example who's using images of emaciated AI-generated people disasters and starving kids to rake in likes and cash. His page "Anita Kumari" has a whopping 112,000 followers. It's all about preying on the emotions of users especially in India to drive engagement and make a quick buck.
He highlights this YouTube video and describes it like this:
He pauses on another image of a man being eaten by bugs. “They are getting so many likes,” he says. “They got 700 likes within 2-4 hours. They must have earned $100 from just this one photo. Facebook now pays you $100 for 1,000 likes … you must be wondering where you can get these images from. Don’t worry. I’ll show you how to create images with the help of AI.”
That video is in Hindi but you can request auto-translated English subtitles in the YouTube video settings. The image generator demonstrated in the video is Ideogram, which offers a free plan. (Here's pelicans having a tea party on a yacht.)
Now these creators aren't exactly raking in the big bucks but it's not chump change either. In developing countries this kind of income is enough to live on which means there's a booming market for get-rich-quick schemes and tutorials. Most of the traffic is coming from the good ol' U.S. of A. with older users—you know the "boomers"—getting sucked in by these bizarre images. They're either completely oblivious to what they're looking at or they're so far down the online rabbit hole that they don't even care anymore.
One former Meta employee spilled the beans saying that Facebook is well aware of these loopholes but they simply can't keep up with how quickly people are exploiting them.
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The company's content moderation teams have been decimated by layoffs leaving them woefully understaffed to handle the deluge of AI-generated nonsense.
It's not just the creators but also the tools they're using that are contributing to these bizarre images. They're feeding poorly translated prompts into AI image generators like Microsoft's AI Image Creator. These prompts often in Hindi, Urdu or Vietnamese don't always translate smoothly into English resulting in the twisted nightmarish images that end up going viral. Some of the weirdness stems from people using Google Translate or speech-to-text to create prompts which just adds another layer of distortion to the mix.
And who's footing the bill for this madness? Advertisers who are being duped into thinking these images are driving genuine engagement.
At this point Facebook is drowning in what can only be described as digital slop.
You've got images like "Shrimp Jesus" truckloads of babies and cops wading through floods with massive Bibles—just plain bizarre stuff that somehow keeps garnering likes and shares. 404 Media's investigation uncovered an entire marketplace dedicated to spreading these twisted images for profit. Big pages with over 100,000 followers are in on the act encouraged by YouTubers like Gyan Abhishek who's pushing others to create similar pages to cash in on Facebook's Creator Bonus Program.
This bonus program is essentially Facebook throwing gasoline on the fire.
They're paying people who make this content go viral which is just exacerbating the problem!
Creators are using AI tools with Abhishek even offering tips on generating the best junk. His go-to? "Poor people thin body".
It's all about racking up those likes which can net creators between $3 and $10 per 1,000 likes.
That's not chump change in parts of the world where the cost of living is low. But Facebook or rather Meta is struggling to keep a lid on this mess. The company's moderation teams are stretched so thin they can't stem the tide of AI-generated garbage.
Facebook says a lot of these AI-generated images don't violate any rules so they're not doing much to stop them.
A Meta spokesperson even admitted they know bad actors are circumventing the rules but they're supposedly working on better detection and enforcement.
But this isn't just a Facebook problem.
Researchers from Stanford and Georgetown University have demonstrated that scammers and spammers are using this lowbrow content to grow their audiences on Facebook. The platform's aging user base (sic) is lapping it up either out of ignorance or just for kicks. Even with all the AI image generators out there it seems the novelty hasn't worn off for Facebook's users. And scammers are cashing in using the engagement to drive people to ad-filled websites peddle junk and build bigger followings.
The researchers mentioned that Facebook's algorithms are to blame.
They're boosting these AI-generated images giving them prime real estate in users' feeds.
And judging by the comments most people have no idea these images are synthetic. A few savvy users try to sound the alarm but the flood of AI slop keeps rolling in. Facebook could do more to tackle this. They could force pages to label AI-generated content or add more transparency measures. But whether they'll actually take action remains to be seen.
Take Google for instance.
Google is already making moves to penalize low-effort AI content in its search results but whether these efforts will work is still up in the air. Meanwhile Facebook's monstrous user base keeps chugging along with over three billion users worldwide.
The platform has been around for 20 years and while it's too big to fail it's also lost its relevance. Young people have jumped ship and now Facebook's stuck with lazy AI-generated images of shrimp Jesus and other absurdities.
It's a sad state of affairs but as long as Facebook keeps rewarding this kind of content it's hard to see things getting better anytime soon.
So, I either need to get over it and play along, or quit and move to ...... yeah.. whereto?
I am using more and more the social component of the Metaverse. It is far from dead. It is in the plateau of productivity (Gartner).
Well, that's a wrap for today. Tomorrow, I'll have a fresh episode of TechTonic Shifts for you. If you enjoy my writing and want to support my work, feel free to buy me a coffee ??
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Signing off - Marco
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3 个月Marco van Hurne the fact that they are mass generating things that prey on compassion. Just leaves such a bad "artificial sweetener" taste in my mouth. Wonders if it could be defined as evil?
Creator of the Trust-Made Growth?? Index | Giver of Damns
3 个月This feels on-brand for them.
Swiss Army Illustrator | Creative Director | Graphic Designer | Clown to the left of you
3 个月With great power, comes no responsibility.
Shall we make a difference together???????????
3 个月I completely agree with you Marco The very idea is sickening....yuck