Troll Farm Puns

I'm a real American teacher though. Promise.

Hi Filipinos!

First time posting here on Reddit since I don't want to post this kind of topic on social media such as Facebook. I know people here has broader comprehension.

So I would like to share what I have found out recently about troll farms based on my experience.

I am living on a Condo here in Rizal. Around 6 months ago, may new tenant na nag rent sa unit na nasa tabi namin. So in short, bago naming kapit bahay.

First day pa lang, na curious agad ako dahil marami silang computers na dala when they moved in. They are also in a group, more or less 8 sila, some of them I think are around 20 and some are more than 30 years old.

After a while, dumadaan ako sa harap ng unit nila, their door is open and I can clearly see that they have arranged their computers. Parang computer shop/call center ang arrangement.

Dahil lagi akong lumalabas, lagi ko rin nakikita and naoobserve ang ginagawa nila sa loob. It seems that they are just using Facebook all of the time.

Almost everyday and every night, may bagong tao na labas pasok sa unit nila. Not judging their looks but most of them ay mukhang tambay lang, may bata, may matanda, may babae, lalake and LGBT. Not sure how they can pass thru our guards sa gate.

Because of my worries and for our safety, I opened my ears and observed more what they are doing.

For the past few months, these are my observations.

1. They operate 24/7 with a call center setup but they are not answering calls, they are just using Facebook.
2. I always see new faces. People working there are not permanent, maybe they have a short term contract.
3. There are 2 or 3 times I noticed na may dumadating na Manager looking guy, well dressed and poised then I can hear that he is conducting a meeting/seminar/coaching session with the people working there.
4. Multiple times, me and my partner saw a person, sitting near our door while crying. When they saw us, they hurriedly go inside their unit.
5. They are doing recruitments or new hiring of new people into their group.

What made me believed that this is a troll farm?

1. We over heard this during their meetings and other discussions.
   1. "Wag niyo gagamitin ang personal niyong Facebook account, baka makilala tayo"
   2. "Bawal tayo mag pakilala sa ibang tao, lagi niyong gamitin ang account na binigay sainyo"
   3. "Ito lang ang mga pwede niyong sabihin..."
2. I also always overheard them asking "Pre, nagagalit to, ano sasabihin ko dito?"
3. While on the elevator, they are always ta

Hi Reddit,

I'm Sophie Zhang. I was fired from Facebook in September 2020; on my last day, I stayed up in an all-nighter to write a 7.8k word farewell memo that was leaked to the press and went viral on Reddit. I went public with the Guardian on April 12 of this year, because the problems I worked on won't be solved unless I force the issue like this.

In the process of my work at Facebook, I caught state-sponsored troll farms in Honduras and Azerbaijan that I only convinced the company to act on after a year - and was unable to stop the perpetrators from immediately returning afterwards.

In India, I worked on a much smaller case where I found multiple groups of inauthentic activity benefiting multiple major political parties and received clearance to take them down. I took down all but one network - as soon as I realized that it was directly tied to a sitting member of the Lok Sabha, I was suddenly ignored,

In the United States, I played a small role in a case which drew some attention on Reddit, in which a right-wing advertising group close to Turning Point USA was running ads supporting the Green Party in the leadup to the U.S. 2018 midterms. While Facebook eventually decided that the activity was permitted since no policies had been violated, I came forward with the Guardian last month because it appeared that the perpetrators may have misled the FEC - a potential federal crime.

I also wrote an op-ed for Rest of the World about less-sophisticated/attention-getting social media inauthenticity

To be clear, since there was confusion about this in my last AMA, my remit was what Facebook calls inauthentic activi

It'd certainly put immediate and severe pressure on the government if all of a sudden smartphones, facebook, youtube, online banking, torrents etc didn't work.

Remember APEs investment grade silver is far rarer than gold above ground. Paying the current GSR would be downright insane.

Considering their influence in other social media and the kind of content that tends to blow up on here, not to mention the problem of bot/scam accounts acknowledged in other contexts, I think there are several popular subreddits being heavily influenced in this way.

I mean, let's face it: Trolls are the drivers of discussion and influence sa social media, which heavily affects people's perception of presidential candidates. So bakit di na lang tumabla ng laban ang kampo ni VP Leni, pero of course they will pay the trolls for spreading truth and disproving Marcos propaganda. What do you guys think?

There seems to be an uptick in the number of sockpuppet accounts on Twitter in the last few months. I'm seeing a lot of new accounts with names along the lines of KiwiMary232 and feeds full of conspiracy garbage. I'm looking at one specific account right now and they seem to be following other accounts with roughly the same content and age.

We are all stuck at home right now and the internet, for a lot of us, is our main connection to the outside world. I think this leaves us particularly vulnerable to this kind of campaign, which is why I'm posting.

I hope our intelligence agencies are looking at this and can put pressure on these social media companies to do something. I'm a bit dismayed there's no way I can even report obvious troll farm accounts to Twitter.

I should mention I notice the same thing here, but there seems to be more pushback on misinformation on Reddit.