Have you ever looked at your social media feed and wondered if the world has gone off the rails?
Well, you are not alone. When fake news, wild accusations, and personal attacks flourish, it is easy to become discouraged.
But, are people really as angry and crazy as they seem?
Or could you be seeing a troll farm at work?
In this short lesson, we’ll take a look at troll farms: how they operate, and the signs that reveal their true nature.
What is a troll farm?
A troll farm (or troll factory) is a company that spreads propaganda and disinformation online on behalf of a client. Those who employ them have traditionally been politicians, governments, the military, or a country’s secret services.
Russia, China, and Turkey are just some of the states that have their own troll farms, and that have used these to manipulate (more or less) democratic elections. They are notorious for spreading fake news and running pure smear campaigns against both internal opposition and external enemies. They also will not hesitate to attack critical journalists and others who attempt to expose their true colours.
Troll farms can be also be used as an element in hybrid warfare to confuse, demoralise, and divide the enemy.
In recent years, troll farming has also become a lucrative private industry. Disinformation-as-a-Service (DaaS) is now being used by private PR firms and anyone with a large enough budget to employ them, and for virtually any purpose.
How does a troll farm work?
Troll farms use many of the same methods as astroturfers, mixed with a heavy dose of trolling.
Sarcasm, swearing, verbal abuse, and threats are not uncommon. Spamming the comment section with controversial memes, videos, and links to fake news is another tactic they use. The goal is to provoke people enough to get a rise out of them, which then translates into more clicks, shares, or comments on their posts.
When the algorithms notice the engagement, the trolls are rewarded as their content and comments are pushed to more users. Why, you ask? Because increased engagement means increased advertising revenue for the platform. If you’re curious about how this works, the documentary “The Social Dilemma” could be worth a watch.
Troll farms are constantly evolving, and quickly pick up new trends. One method that has proven to be effective in later years is to create groups or pages about popular topics on social media, or to buy those that already have a large following.
The trust that these pages have built with their followers will then be abused by the troll farm to further their clients’ aims. People are more easily persuaded by someone they feel they already know and believe they have something in common with.
When MIT Technology Review investigated the spread of troll farms on Facebook, they found that the troll farm pages had a combined reach of 140 million in the US alone.
“In the run-up to the 2020 election, the most highly contested in US history, Facebook’s most popular pages for Christian and Black American content were being run by Eastern European troll farms. “ – MIT Technology Review, “Troll farms reached 140 million Americans a month on Facebook before 2020 election, internal report shows”
Troll farms 2.0 and AI Slop
The earliest troll farms were human-driven. The infamous Internet Research Agency (IRA) in St. Petersburg employed thousands of people to manually click, like, comment and share on social media on behalf of the Russian Government.
Now, most of the work can be done by a single agent using Large Language Models (LLMs), the kind that powers Chat GPT or Claude. These LLM powered bots can mimic human users and generate large volumes of unique messages and content, tailored to the specific target, in record time.
Add to that the instant generation of AI slop, and troll farms have a brand new bag of tricks they can use to manipulate the public – at scale and with minimal cost. The slop that gets served on social media is then artificially boosted by bot engagement, which tricks the algorithm into pushing the content to real human users. This is how they are able to hijack your feed on social media, and why the platforms keep showing you their content.
How troll farms manipulate you
Troll farms don’t create hot button issues out of thin air. Instead they find real wounds and pour salt into them and rub it in repeatedly to make people angry, sow division, and further their (often political) aims.
Take the issue of aid for returning soldiers and veterans in the US, for example. It’s no secret that veterans have a higher rate of homelessness compared to the general population, a situation that many people justifiably think is unfair. After all, these people risked their lives for their country and deserve better.
Now, a troll farm might take this wound and create messages that are framed as domestic neglect. Or, to put it simply: why are we spending billions on foreign aid, immigrants, support for Ukraine, and so on, when we have a real need for those funds back home?
The sentiment is not new, and is no doubt shared by many. The problem is that it’s taking two unrelated issues and pitting them against each other, as if you are only allowed to care about one issue and need to choose which you want to throw money at. And as we know, most people believe that charity starts at home. But does it have to end there as well? If those who sponsor the troll farms had their way, it probably would.
When you see messages like the one below on social media, recognise that they are posing a false choice question. The world is rarely black-or-white, and there are more choices available to you than the troll farms would have you believe.
How troll farms affect us
The easiest way to find out how troll farms affect us, is to look at some of the reasons why we use social media:
- 34.5 % get their news from social media
- 29.2 % want to see what others are talking about
- 21.9 % share personal views and discuss them with other users
If the news you are being served is fake, the views are paid for, and your attempts at friendly discussion are met with scorn and personal attacks; how does this shape your view of the world? How does it make you feel about your fellow humans (whom the trolls pretend to be)?
Troll farms destroy the fundamental trust people have in one another and the world around them. We become suspicious of our neighbours and afraid to express ourselves in public.
In other words, troll farms are highly effective weapons within hybrid warfare. A divided population that don’t trust each other, and are unable agree on what the facts are, will never be able to mount an effective response to threats.
How to recognise troll farms on social media
Troll farms uses fake, hacked, or purchased accounts to spread their message. These are some of the signs that will help you recognise them:
- The profile is relatively new, often less than a year old
- The profile has few photos and limited biographical information
- They use AI-generated profile images or generic imagery (like flags, cars, nature etc.)
- The posts are impersonal and deal with only one or a few hot-button topics
- They spam and repeat themselves in the comment section, and seem completely uninterested in casual human interaction
- They have few friends, mostly from other countries than they claim to be from
- The URL name and profile name do not match (this happens when they buy or hack accounts of existing users and rebrand them)
When troll farms buy or hack existing accounts, it can be difficult for the platforms to detect the change at first. A 15-year old account has established credibility and is assumed ‘safe’. The only giveaway here is the change in user behaviour, like a shift in content and post frequency.
As we have seen, troll farms also buy popular groups and pages on social media to expand their reach. If the page or group you follow changes its name and starts publishing content that is different to what you are used to, it may be a sign that a troll farm has taken over.
And as always, if you spot these signs and suspect that a troll farm is at work – ignore, block, report. Anything else will only feed the trolls, and that is not something you want to do.
Take our quick quiz to see if you remember the basics
Results
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