Are you running an open registration mastodon instance?
Have you dealt with local accounts being reported for Russian troll farm or misinformation activity?
You NEED to look at more than just those accounts.
For each one that is getting reported, there are probably a dozen that do not. Once the troll farms get one in and that lasts a while, they'll come back and make more. Lots more.
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@el_on_libera what's a "Russian troll farm" account? As a leftist in the US I've heard a lot about Russian agents/trolls/etc being responsible for, lol, pretty much all that is wrong here, such as racism, fascism, climate change, etc etc, but I've never seen a "troll farm" myself. Is that, like, a group of political writers who write things you don't like?
Is a troll farm something like the US CyberCommand? Or more like Palantir?
@jbrownesq Why would you have seen one in the US?
You may have heard of "gold farms" though? Where mostly gig economy workers, make accounts on paid games and level up the character and/or grind currency. They then give the account to their employer who sells the stuff. Steve Bannon (yes that guy https://jacobin.com/2025/08/bannon-online-media-wow-coordination) used to run one.
It's really the same thing, but they're just spamming propaganda.
User farms aren't unique to Russia or politics. Russia just likes them a lot.
@el_on_libera so you are saying online game gold farms are the same as Russian troll farms? Or that's what the OP is talking about??
Why would I have seen one in the US? Not sure what that means. I was sarcastically referring to the IMMENSE amount of private and public hacking that exists here, in the US, hoping that others see this absurdity as well.
@el_on_libera yeah, I've been in tech a looong time and I've watched the media invent pop culture versions of all of the above, and then non tech folks pick up the cue and talk about "hackers and troll farms"(usually russian, Chinese of course)being behind all manner of things.
'Troll farms' are basically behind everything america doesn't like about itself, if im not mistaken. As a tech worker, I think about this often.
@jbrownesq I've been in tech and done tech space moderation for 2 decades.
It's not a media invention.
That gold farm CEO took over Breitbart News in 2012. He was a Trump v1 campaign advisor. That site targeted disaffected young men with prolifically linked articles that promoted bigoted talking points formulated to exploit insecurity about women, queer folk, and any demographic that fails to conform to what mainstream media tells young guys to want.
You may recall this as "Gamergate". 2014.
That "el" person on IRC
Jbrown, Esq