Coordinated / multi-account
Several accounts — run by one person, a small group, or a loose crowd — producing the appearance of independent agreement. Manufactured consensus is the product; volume is the weapon.
Responding at this level
Disengaging no longer ends it, because you were never the audience. This is where documentation, platform reporting and support become the real moves, and where "just ignore it" starts doing harm as advice.
- Counter-speech →
Replying in public so that onlookers see a claim answered, rather than to persuade the person who made it — a narrower and rarer case than most advice about replying implies.
- Keeping a record →
Writing down what happened, when it happened and who saw it — a practice borrowed from guidance about stalking and harassment, not tested for the ordinary tactics documented elsewhere on this site.
14 tactics at this level
Sockpuppetry
One person running multiple accounts to manufacture the appearance of independent agreement.
Identity & coordination
Meatpuppetry
Recruiting real people to post on your behalf, producing genuine accounts with borrowed motives.
Identity & coordination
Ban evasion
Returning to a community under a new identity after removal, resetting the moderation record.
Identity & coordination
Brigading
An organised group arriving from elsewhere to overwhelm a discussion or a person.
Amplification
Dogpiling
Many people responding to one person at once, where the volume rather than any single message is the harm.
Amplification
Vote manipulation
Coordinated voting to promote or bury content irrespective of what it says.
Amplification
Review bombing
Mass negative reviews driven by a grievance unrelated to the thing being reviewed.
Amplification
Mass reporting
Coordinated abuse reports used to trigger automated enforcement against a target.
Amplification
Astroturfing
Manufacturing the appearance of grassroots support for an organised or commercial interest.
Identity & coordination
Crowdturfing
Astroturfing bought at scale through paid-crowd marketplaces rather than run in-house.
Identity & coordination
Impersonation
Posing as a specific person or organisation to borrow or damage their credibility.
Identity & coordination
Infiltration
Building a long-running trusted persona inside a community before using the trust it earned.
Identity & coordination
Raiding
A coordinated influx into a live space — a stream, server or chat — to overwhelm it in real time.
Amplification
Griefing
Playing a shared space to ruin it for others rather than to win at it.
Bait