Table of Contents
Definition
Coordinated, often pre-planned, mass online activity to affect a piece of content, or an account, or an entire community or message board. Examples include coordinated upvoting or downvoting a post to affect its distribution, mass-reporting an account (usually falsely) for abuse in an attempt to cause the service provider to suspend it, or inundating a business with good or bad reviews.
Related Terms
Dogpiling, Coordinated Inauthentic Behaviour, Coordinated Harassment, Vote Manipulation (on platforms with voting), Mobbing, Raiding (especially in gaming/live stream contexts).
Background
Brigading in the Fediverse refers to the practice where a group of accounts coordinates to target a specific account, post, or community with a sudden influx of posts, replies, or other interactions. This is often done to silence, intimidate, overwhelm, or artificially sway opinion. The decentralised architecture of the Fediverse presents unique challenges; brigading can be organised on one community or platform and then directed at another, making it hard for the targeted community’s moderators to anticipate or quickly identify the source.
Due to the autonomy of each community, policies and enforcement regarding participation in or organisation of brigades may vary. A service provider might host accounts that engage in or orchestrate brigading – either knowingly or unknowingly – affecting other communities. Volunteer moderators typically rely on recognising sudden, unusual spikes in negative or targeted activity, often from accounts unfamiliar to their community, and may need to communicate with other communities or service providers to understand the full context, which can be difficult or slow.
Brigading can manifest through Astroturfing, and may use Sock Puppet accounts. Often, the user’s content is reposted or quote posted elsewhere to coordinate the brigade.
Coordinated brigades may target a post or a user with mass reporting.
Why We Care
Dealing with brigading matters because it directly harms the safety, usability, and open feel of your community chosen for targeting. These coordinated efforts can make accounts feel unsafe, drive away genuine participants, and shut down legitimate conversations. When a community is successfully brigaded, it can create a hostile environment, deter new accounts from joining, and make it difficult for regular community life to continue.
If brigading is not addressed, your community can become seen as an easy target, leading to repeated incidents. This undermines the efforts of moderators and damages the community’s reputation and the well-being of its members.
Spotting Brigading: What to Look For
Identification of brigading involves observing patterns of sudden, coordinated hostile or out-of-context engagement.
Account Traits: Look for a rapid influx of posts or replies from multiple accounts that are new to your community or have very little prior interaction on it. These accounts might share similar messaging, ideologies, or be from the same external community if that information is visible.
Content Characteristics: Examine the content for common themes, insults, off-topic arguments, or repetitive phrases directed at a specific account or post. The tone is often hostile, derogatory, or aims to derail discussion massively. Sometimes content is nonsensical or spammy, designed purely to overwhelm.
Posting Patterns: Observe a sudden, high volume of negative or disruptive replies, mentions, or reports targeting one account or discussion. This activity will often appear in a short, concentrated timeframe. Posts from brigaders might also receive an unusual number of “favourites” or “boosts” from other new or unfamiliar accounts.
Behaviour: Assess if these accounts are engaging Genuinely or if their sole purpose seems to be to attack, silence, or disrupt a specific target. They often ignore attempts at good-faith discussion and continue the targeted behaviour.
Key Questions for Assessment:
- “Is this a sudden, unusual spike of negative attention toward a specific account or post?”
- “Are many of these participating accounts new or unknown to our community, and are they acting in a highly similar manner?”
- “Does the activity seem designed to harass, intimidate, or shout down, rather than contribute to discussion?”
Before You Act: Common Pitfalls & Nuances
It’s important to tell the difference between brigading and a genuine, spontaneous influx of critical but legitimate opinions.
Genuine Disagreement/Criticism: A controversial post or action might naturally attract strong, negative reactions from many individual accounts within or outside your community. The key difference is often the lack of apparent off-platform coordination and the willingness of some participants to engage in actual discussion (even if heated) rather than pure, repetitive disruption.
High-Interest Topic: A topic that suddenly becomes widely discussed across the Fediverse might bring many new voices to a relevant thread, some of whom might be critical. This isn’t necessarily brigading if they are engaging individually rather than as an organised bloc.
Common Gotchas:
- Mistaking a “pile-on” of genuine, though perhaps harsh, individual criticism for an organised brigade.
- Overreacting to a few coordinated negative posts if it doesn’t reach a scale that disrupts the community or harasses individuals significantly.
- Assuming all negative sentiment from outside your immediate community is a brigade, as Fediverse discussions can be wide-ranging.
Key Point: Above all, look for evidence of coordination and an intent to overwhelm or harass, rather than just a large number of people expressing similar negative opinions independently. The organised, targeted nature is a hallmark of brigading.
Managing Suspected Brigading: Key Steps
When you think brigading might be happening:
- Observe and Gather Evidence: Quickly assess the scale and nature of the activity. Collect links to problematic posts, and profiles of suspected participating accounts, particularly noting if they are new or external to your community and acting in concert.
- Discuss with Team (if applicable): If part of a moderation team, immediately alert fellow moderators or your Service Administrator. A coordinated response is often necessary for an effective one.
- Protect the Target(s): If an individual account or specific post is being targeted, consider temporary measures to limit the harm (e.g., locking threads, advising the target on limiting interactions, temporarily restricting the target’s account if they request it or if it helps contain the situation).
- Apply Community Guidance: Enforce your community’s rules against harassment, coordinated activity, or disruption. This may involve muting, suspending, or banning participating accounts, especially those clearly acting in bad faith or from outside the community with no intent to participate constructively.
- Consider External Communication Carefully: If a brigade clearly originates from another specific community, your Service Administrator might consider informing the leadership of that community and potentially blocking or limiting interaction from the offending community if the activity is severe and persistent.
Example Community Guidance
Strike System: “Participation in coordinated actions that disrupt discussions or target accounts for harassment will result in an official warning and is considered a strike. Further violations leading to three strikes will result in account suspension.”
General Prohibition: “Organised harassment or disruptive targeting of accounts or discussions is prohibited.”
Strict Enforcement: “Engagement in or clear organisation of brigading activities will lead to immediate and permanent account bans, and may result in content from originating communities being limited.”
