Whisper of ReasonToday, a lot of accounts suddenly became "experts" on the Middle East in general and Iran in particular.
Many of those trollbot accounts were also registered just a few days ago.
If #Mastodon moderators are serious about combating spam and disinformation on the platform, then why do I need to report new "jimmytruth" accounts daily? If you can't remove one lousy spambot from your platform, how are you going to counter huge troll factories when they move here from Twitter?
Identified and blocked a pro-CCP account (masquerading as a fellow climate activist) among my followers.
Let me be crystal clear on this topic: I'm no rightwing troll screaming "only China is responsible for climate change!" However, we all must recognize that China is pumping humongous amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. Touting the totalitarian CCP as "part of the solution" is misinformation and propaganda, and one of the shortest ways to my ignore list.
There's an ongoing wave of pro-Kremlin disinformation fake accounts attacking various Mastodon instances. All of them are clearly automated, posting the same propaganda snippets and even using the same names like "Alt News."
It's extremely regrettable that the Fediverse admins chose the unwinnable game of whack-a-mole as a defense against such attacks instead of swiftly implementing a premoderation policy for new and unvetted accounts.
2H 2025 funding has arrived, so there's a noticeable spike in trollbot activity on Mastodon. Over the last few days, I had to send more than a dozen abuse reports just for obvious and serious violations.
What's happening on other social media platforms, I can only imagine.
Ugh, this is new (around here): I just reported and blocked a trollbot who was literally posting the "CO2 is plant food" nonsense. For a moment, Mastodon smelled almost like Twitter, and I'm hardly nostalgic for that unbearable stench.
Anyway. No, fuckwits, plants have absolutely no need of your CO2! Plants had existed long before mammals appeared, not to mention humans. The only thing the excess CO2 you produce does is causing ever more climate destruction.
And while none of those replies explicitly says "yes, they're laws", that's what they implicitly amount to.
What happened to "never obey in advance", I wonder?
It's still a far cry from the Twitter cesspool, but the atmosphere is becoming much more stifling than it used to be and definitely much less friendly to people saying reasonable things.
I know how to deal with this. I know from experience that I can block 500+ accounts per day every day, if I need to.
When I first joined Mastodon (a while ago actually - that account perished with the server it was on) I was blocking maybe 3-4 accounts per month. I had spent 7 years on Twitter, so my blocking reflex was almost automatic yet nothing triggered it around here.
Sadly, not anymore.
Now, I block about 30-40 accounts per week. Because I have to. Because now even something as simple as somebody stating a simple fact that Trumps EOs are no laws prompts a wave of troll replies.
Whisper of ReasonI see a disturbing increase in trollbot activity on Mastodon in these first days of 2025. It used to be rather tame here, but now certain specific toots are visibly targeted.
Whether it's Fediverse or anywhere else, you should never dismiss offensive comments as mere aberrations. Especially when they suddenly appear where previously there were none. Mute and block without hesitation!