Fake news and online hate. “These are people whose whereabouts 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 violence allegedly committed by her husband, entrepreneur Rafał Brzoska. Before the fraudsters wrote about his wife's death or that he had beaten her, they also used his image and voice to extort money.

Representatives of various social and professional circles appealed to the Minister of Justice Adam Bodnar to take decisive action to combat the publication of fake news and hate speech in the virtual space. The open letter was initiated and signed by over 200 entrepreneurs, representatives of business organizations and the media.

The signatories also included Kasia Kieli, President & Managing Director of Warner Bros. Discovery in Poland and CEO of TVN, as well as Michał Samul, editor-in-chief of TVN24 and “Fakty” TVN. Piotr Konieczny, founder of the Polish cybersecurity website Niebezpiecznik.pl, spoke on TVN24 about the issue of cybercriminal attacks and online hate.

When asked about the people who spread videos with false information online, such as the death of someone famous, Konieczny noted that their authors are well-known.

– These are people whose whereabouts are known. The only problem is that they are outside the Polish justice system and outside the justice system of most countries. These are our eastern colleagues from across the eastern border who simply engage in financial fraud. Because these films really do present various shocking, dramatic events, false events, but they have one specific goal – said the expert.

– Contrary to appearances, it is not about slandering people whose image was used, although of course it is not something nice for these people. It is about persuading Poles and not only, because also CzechsBulgarians, Hungarians to invest their money, their savings in fake financial services, which in consequence simply extort this money, presenting an illusory vision that this money will be able to be multiplied – he stated.

Speaking about the issue of online fraud, the expert noted that we are dealing with a “multi-level problem”.

– Of course, it would be best to have an educated society, which, if it sees that a very famous sportsman, politician or journalist is praising anything, any product, then asks itself whether this person can really praise such a product, whether this product is trustworthy, and not that they will say that you can immediately entrust some company with your life savings, buy anything. And this is our upbringing, our very poor education, and above all, the lack of critical thinking and it seems to me to be a bit of the specificity of the times in which we live. Because today we have very little time – said Konieczny.

The head of niebezpiecznik.pl assessed that people these days do not read all the articles in detail, do not analyze the content on their own, do not reach the sources. – We trust that editorial offices, journalists do it for us, and we know that not all editorial offices put so much effort into it and this lack of critical thinking gets us into these problems – he pointed out, adding at the same time that there is another side to the problem.

– There is a great deal of responsibility of the platforms here, and not only of Meta, the owner of Facebook or Instagram, but also of Google, the owner of YouTube, because this type of false advertisements using the images of famous people have been appearing on these platforms for years, they have been reported for years (…) by these specific people and their relatives and nothing is done about it – said Konieczny, adding that from his own experience he knows that after such a report “we often receive information from Facebook that this advertisement does not violate our standards, it will continue to be displayed, it will continue to rob Poles and other people of their savings”.

– So all hope here lies with politicians and the law, to finally talk some sense into the platforms, platforms that make money on our market, but do not fully comply with the rules of the game that should prevail when it comes to the safety of the users of these services – he pointed out.

When asked about the actions that should be introduced, Konieczny pointed out that, first of all, greater investment in the work of human moderators is needed.

– The services explain that they have automatic content moderation systems and such systems are needed without a doubt. However, it is a bit strange that the company behind one of the most popular, advanced models of artificial intelligence today is not able to create an algorithm that would be able to detect quite easily that it is not Rafał Brzoska who directs to a fake website of one of the television stations, which is in a completely different domain than the website of this television station in reality and the entire mechanism of fraud is based on exactly the same thing – said the expert and noted that the websites to which these ads direct are “made in one go”. – It is really easy to learn this pattern, but here these advanced algorithms are powerless – he emphasized.

In Konieczny's opinion, digital platforms should be forced to spend at least part of their profits on moderators, and only those who have clear instructions.

– When they see an ad that clearly encourages people to waste their life savings, they will come to the conclusion that it is worth removing such an ad from display, rather than allowing it to continue to bring material benefits to the service – said the TVN24 guest.

When asked about the second element of the letter to Minister Bodnar, i.e. hate speech and the issue of its impunity, Konieczny noted that “in principle, unfortunately, no technical or legal measures will put an end to this hate.”

– Today we live in a world where everyone can be sufficiently anonymous, because this complete anonymity is reserved for a select few. But there is sufficient anonymity that results in the lack of this criminal liability and allows for the harassment of other people with impunity. Unfortunately, this will always be possible, so in my opinion the only thing left for us is the tedious removal of this content, i.e. once again more effective moderation that reacts quickly, that quickly removes such content and an even more tedious thing, unfortunately, proper education of all of us, new generations, to immunize them against hate, to show that this is a phenomenon that will unfortunately be associated with the Internet – he pointed out.

According to Konieczny, people need to be taught “how to deal with this problem, perhaps ignore it, show that out of 100 people who read some content on the internet, there is one person who spits venom, but in reality 99 people pass by it indifferently or applaud such a thought, but they do not have time, unlike this hater, to waste, to spoil the blood of the author of such content”.

– And this learning of critical thinking, understanding how the Internet works, can help people who experience this hate to cope with this phenomenon, which is unfortunately common – he said.

The head of niebezpiecznik.pl pointed out that although there are demands for changes in the law to make it easier to prosecute haters, it is not as easy as it seems.

– The problem is that in order to track a person even by this mythical IP address, you have to understand how the technology works. In many cases, it does not matter that the police will be able to determine the IP address of the perpetrator, i.e. the author of a given malicious, insulting, harassing comment, if the operator responds that the same IP address was used at the same time by several hundred people – he explained.

– There is no obligation in Poland to log so-called source ports, I am speaking very technically here, and this is actually the reason why determining even the IP address of a specific perpetrator is extremely difficult. After all, someone's computer could have been taken over, hacked, and from their IP address, from their device, someone insulted other people – he added.