I'm getting a LOT of new followers this weekend and today from mastodon.social that claim to be news aggregators.
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I'm getting a LOT of new followers this weekend and today from mastodon.social that claim to be news aggregators. all created in the past 72 hours. Someone's spinning up a MONSTROUS propaganda/fake news campaign out there right now! I'm guessing it's a state level actor. Be cautious and double-check anything that sounds too good to be true or too outrageous to ignore!
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I'm getting a LOT of new followers this weekend and today from mastodon.social that claim to be news aggregators. all created in the past 72 hours. Someone's spinning up a MONSTROUS propaganda/fake news campaign out there right now! I'm guessing it's a state level actor. Be cautious and double-check anything that sounds too good to be true or too outrageous to ignore!
@cstross tons of anti-EU, pro US/ISR accounts with a creation date in the past week, targeting high-follower accounts. Fedi is now a worthwhile target.
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@cstross tons of anti-EU, pro US/ISR accounts with a creation date in the past week, targeting high-follower accounts. Fedi is now a worthwhile target.
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Federation fails when dot social just let ANYONE join their instance with zero checks or moderation activity. The only way to stop that is concerted and cooperative action by many other instances to simply defederate from dot social. An open door in one instance can affect all who take no action.
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Federation fails when dot social just let ANYONE join their instance with zero checks or moderation activity. The only way to stop that is concerted and cooperative action by many other instances to simply defederate from dot social. An open door in one instance can affect all who take no action.
@Black_Flag @celeduc @cstross Looking at what accounts I follow, I do not want to defederate. In a way, that’s the crucial point: mass communication (and not defederation).
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@Black_Flag @celeduc @cstross Looking at what accounts I follow, I do not want to defederate. In a way, that’s the crucial point: mass communication (and not defederation).
The entire point of federation is picking and choosing to your own taste. If you want to stop a fire in a forest you need a fire break. Nearly every problem I see on mastodon comes from the open sign up operated by dot social (about which they do nothing). I guess we have to wait until they can;t afford the cost anymore.
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The entire point of federation is picking and choosing to your own taste. If you want to stop a fire in a forest you need a fire break. Nearly every problem I see on mastodon comes from the open sign up operated by dot social (about which they do nothing). I guess we have to wait until they can;t afford the cost anymore.
@Black_Flag @axeln @celeduc @cstross IFTAS has tracked many hundreds of these accounts being created, mastodon dot social is one of the most responsive at getting them removed. The state actor in question has been seen on over 180 servers in the past 60 days. Numerous servers have done nothing to remove these accounts or monitor new accounts. Accounts are still being created on open registration servers today.
Coordinated Pro-Russian Propaganda Network Targeting ActivityPub and ATProto Services
Indicators of compromise (IOCs) that identify accounts as likely being part of the network include: a single follow (the bsky.brid.gy @ bsky.brid.gy account), or first follow is the bridge followers and following hidden from public registration after September 8, 2025 linking to pro-Russia Telegram channels, or Russian news sources posts that cut off mid-sentence masquerading…
IFTAS (about.iftas.org)
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C Cactuar Joe shared this topic
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@Black_Flag @axeln @celeduc @cstross IFTAS has tracked many hundreds of these accounts being created, mastodon dot social is one of the most responsive at getting them removed. The state actor in question has been seen on over 180 servers in the past 60 days. Numerous servers have done nothing to remove these accounts or monitor new accounts. Accounts are still being created on open registration servers today.
Coordinated Pro-Russian Propaganda Network Targeting ActivityPub and ATProto Services
Indicators of compromise (IOCs) that identify accounts as likely being part of the network include: a single follow (the bsky.brid.gy @ bsky.brid.gy account), or first follow is the bridge followers and following hidden from public registration after September 8, 2025 linking to pro-Russia Telegram channels, or Russian news sources posts that cut off mid-sentence masquerading…
IFTAS (about.iftas.org)
@iftas @Black_Flag @axeln @celeduc @cstross
The state actor in question
You can just say "Russia," at this point I think we all know.
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J Jürgen Hubert shared this topic
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@iftas @Black_Flag @axeln @celeduc @cstross
The state actor in question
You can just say "Russia," at this point I think we all know.
Yes, but also no.
One of the interesting things to come out of #Twitter recently openly geolocating accounts is that the countries (India, Bangladesh, et al.) where there are major organized crime systems for scamming people around the world via telephone/CMC are also the countries where many propaganda (including MAGA) Twitter accounts are run from.
So the people *actually doing the grunt work* aren't likely the Russian state.
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Yes, but also no.
One of the interesting things to come out of #Twitter recently openly geolocating accounts is that the countries (India, Bangladesh, et al.) where there are major organized crime systems for scamming people around the world via telephone/CMC are also the countries where many propaganda (including MAGA) Twitter accounts are run from.
So the people *actually doing the grunt work* aren't likely the Russian state.
@JdeBP @Legit_Spaghetti @iftas @Black_Flag @axeln @celeduc Why would the Russian state do the grunt work themselves when they can pay peanuts to traffickers in the developing world to do it for them? They want to throw their own people into the buzz-saw on the Ukraine front instead ...
