In Bulgaria, Russian trolls dominate the information battle. On December 13, 2022, a group of Bulgarian activists from the non-governmental organization Bulgaria United for One Cause (BOEC) launched an action in Sofia, the country’s capital. Live on Facebook, they protested against Telus – an international outsourcing company that undertakes content moderation services for the Meta platform. The group arrived at Telus’ offices armed with printouts highlighting posts and accounts that had been removed from their website – these were then taped to the front doors as proof!
The Bulgarian Confederation of Outsourcing Employees (BOEC) recently accused Telus of censoring anti-Russian and pro-Ukrainian posts. The incident came shortly after Bird.bg, a local news source, alleged, which Telus denies, that the outsourcing company was working with pro-Russian elites to suppress messages praising Ukraine on Facebook. The website also posted photos and names of Telus employees for all to see on its social media page.
The anger against Telus and Meta in Bulgaria had reached such a point that Marilyn Tyfling, the outsourcing company’s CEO, was summoned to appear before the Bulgarian parliament on January 26. In an official statement, TELUS International stressed that it does not create content review, but instead complies with its customers’ regulations and abides by the law. To further refute the allegations of pro-Russian bias in its governance system, Meta published a blog post on February 1, in which it stated that the allegations were “false,” with no evidence to support them.
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However, professionals who monitor Russia’s efforts to manipulate European media reveal that the reality is more complex. Kremlin supporters and Russian propagandists have become adept at exploiting Meta’s mitigation policies, filing numerous reports on content to initiate reviews that can ultimately lead to deletion. Without any clarity about the reasoning behind the removals, pro-Ukrainian activists have experienced a deep sense of betrayal and powerlessness, leading them to focus intensely on Meta’s powerless moderators who are supposed to enforce their rules.
Trad, whose Facebook account was falsely reported and then suspended for hosting extremist content in the past, claims that pro-Russian factions often organize on Telegram to determine which accounts or posts should be reported and removed from Facebook. Apparently, these groups are either based in Russia or are made up of paid-for Bulgarian trolls who work at a much lower cost than their counterparts elsewhere.
Todor Galev, research director at the Center for the Study of Democracy, said that the Atlantic Council’s Bulgarian Facebook page has been banned multiple times as a result of the mass reporting. In addition, accounts belonging to prominent journalists and media outlets that are pro- NATO and EU have also been targeted .
A former Meta employee who worked on its content moderation systems and policy and spoke to WIRED on condition of anonymity revealed that mass reporting can lead to certain material or accounts being flagged. It’s possible that the more often a particular type of content is flagged, the more likely it is to be detected by an algorithm in future instances. However, when looking at languages where there isn’t enough material to properly train the AI models, such as Bulgarian, human moderators could be required to make the final judgment on whether something should be taken down or not.
In a statement to WIRED, Meta's Ben Walters emphasized that content removal is not based solely on the number of citations.
The imbalance between the ability of coordinated campaigns to flag content and the ability of individuals or small civil society organizations, whose reports go to moderators, has helped create the impression in Bulgaria that Meta prioritizes pro-Russian content over pro-Ukrainian content.
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Bulgaria, home to 6.87 million people, has recorded over fifty percent of its population actively using Facebook – making it the most influential social platform in the country. Since the start of the conflict in Ukraine seven years ago, Russian trolls and pro-Russian propaganda have heavily targeted the country – local media organizations sympathetic to Moscow’s beliefs do their part by blaming NATO for all hostilities, while rumors circulate about Russian disinformation operations spreading lies about their influence on the events leading up to the war.
Ezekiev, a member of the BOEC, told WIRED that he never received an explanation about why his content was taken down or how the decision was made.
This anger inspired BOEC to protest at Telus' offices in Sofia.
Source of information: wired.com
