Facebook's Opposition Research on Billionaire George Soros

After billionaire George Soros made critical comments about Facebook and Google at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January of this year, Facebook pursued research as to why. Soros had accused the tech giants of being menaces who were not protecting society. Facebook confirmed that Soros is a prominent investor in the company and they wondered if he had shorted Facebook stock or what his motivations could be.

Facebook commissioned Definers Public Affairs, a public relations firm, to conduct opposition research and to provide communications consulting about Soros and others, purportedly at the request of now outgoing communications and policy head Elliot Schrage. Such activity is common in political circles, yet the documents produced by the research are not meant to be released to the public or linked to their sponsors. It is not clear what CEO Mark Zuckerberg or COO Sheryl Sandberg knew or when.

BuzzFeed News was the first to publish a portion of the Definers' documents which draw possible ties between Soros and left-wing advocacy groups. The documents list open source research, such as news clippings and blog posts.

Definers had reported that at least four groups associated with the progressive-led Freedom From Facebook campaign had received funding from or were associated with Soros. Freedom From Facebook has since denied those claims. Research from Axios claims that Freedom From Facebook's original funder is philanthropist and former hedge fund executive David Magerman; the campaign allegedly has a six-figure ad budget.

BuzzFeed News published some of Definers' research documents in their December 1, 2018 article “This Document Is Some Of The Research Facebook Commissioned On George Soros.” The above is summarized from their article.

BREAKING: This never-before-published document shows the opposition research Facebook commissioned on billionaire George Soros.https://t.co/7XtaMLjRat

— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) December 1, 2018

AI R&D and AI-Driven Asymmetric Warfare (ADAW)

The world’s major powers are investing in AI research and development. China has a national AI strategy with a plan to invest $150 billion by 2030. The U.S. DoD invests $7.4 billion a year on unclassified R&D for AI and related fields. Russia, who is currently both light on human capital and financial resources, is currently investing $12.5 million a year.

With a lack of available resources Russia has adjusted its tactical approach to one of asymmetric warfare, where strategic influences and attacks have the potential to produce the greatest impact for their cost. For example, it is estimated that Russia spent about $1 million to influence the 2016 U.S. elections: $100,000 on Facebook ads, $4,700 on Google ads, $240,000 over two years on the IRA troll farm, $50,000 for an intelligence gathering trip by agents in 2014, plus costs for setting up 36,000 automated Twitter bot accounts, costs for creating divisive content, and costs related to the cyber-attacks on the Clinton campaign and the DNC.

The new threat in the information space is AI-driven asymmetric warfare (ADAW). As AI technology advances, the content of disinformation is changing from static (memes, ads, fake news stories) to dynamic (video, audio, "deep-fakes"). AI is also being researched for the purpose of understanding and manipulating human emotions and responses. The manipulative content is able to selectively reach targets via existing advanced content distribution networks.

Summarized from a November 15, 2018 Brookings Report "Weapons of the weak: Russia and AI-driven asymmetric warfare."

Additional resources:
Congressional Artificial Intelligence Caucus
CSIS "Promising Start, but Few Details in House AI Report"

“Digital information warfare is cost-effective and high-impact, making it the perfect weapon of a technologically and economically weak power,” @apolyakova writes on Russian disinformation campaigns https://t.co/8s4qNNpv7v pic.twitter.com/qG9e4hALlh

— Brookings (@BrookingsInst) November 26, 2018