Report and block! How to fight pro-Russian trolls and Putinophiles

Warning! This is an automatic translation from Bulgarian. The translation has not been checked by the editor desk and may be inaccurate or ambiguous. The publisher endorses only the Bulgarian version of the article.

Dozens or even hundreds of profiles put smiles under Facebook posts about the atrocities of the Russian army in Ukraine. They actively comment under media publications and influencer posts, thus giving the impression of mass pro-Russian talking points.

It is an indisputable fact that trolls and putinophiles have the task or need to appear on the comment walls in foreign profiles and long-range pages, and not in their own, which are without followers and with almost no public resonance.

In addition, many of these troll profiles can be activated to mass report posts they have access to, and thus run Facebook’s algorithms for restricting content and the accounts that share it. In this way, legitimate and strong civic voices are often attacked, which receive a ban because of numerous reports.

It is absolutely unnecessary and even harmful to enter into a discussion with such troll or Putinophile profiles. They are not subject to persuasion. The only effect of this is that the public resonance and reach is enhanced, which is the target sought by the troll.

Reporting and blocking troll profiles is the only effective means.

Here we are not talking only about personal information hygiene, but about actively engaging in the information war against evil.

The problem is that reporting and blocking accounts is a laborious occupation, requiring several clicks for each account. The process can be accelerated and optimized by compiling lists of them and sharing them between individuals and long-range media page administrators. For this purpose, we have created a simple tool that speeds up and facilitates things. Below we illustrate how it works with the Chrome browser, but the method also works with Firefox, and possibly other browsers.

The example is from a publication of Deutsche Welle Bulgaria about the raped by Russians Ukrainian women, under which there are currently over 700 smiles. But suitable for this purpose are also posts in the groups of PP “Vazrazhdane” and in the profile of their leader, which collect a large number of enthusiastic comments and likes.

1. Open the likes to the post, select the ones with the smiles, and then scroll to the end of the list. This may be slow as the profiles load dynamically, but it doesn’t take more than a minute or two.

Open the likes to the post, select an emoji and scroll to the end of the list.

2. Bring the scroll back to the beginning. This is important to capture all the names on the screen.
3. From the View – Developer menu, select Select element. The page code appears at the bottom of the window.

Select the code selection tool from the menu.

4. Click on the thin strip above the first profile so that the entire profile table is selected. At the bottom of the window is selected the code that is needed.

6. Open https://q.bird.bg page and paste the code there. Press Process. You get a viewpoint table with names and links to profiles. To start this procedure again, simply reload the page. It does not send information to a server, but only clears the entered html code and presents the data in tabular form with links to the profiles.

At this stage, you can quickly access the profiles, report them as fake, and then block them. You can copy the list and save it to a file to share with friends to report them blocking them in their personal capacity and also on the pages they manage.

The same method works for lists already blocked in your personal account, as well as for account lists that are restricted (banned) by pages you manage.

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За да научавате преди всички за нови разследвания, инсталирайте си нашето мобилно приложение:

Щом сте стигнали дотук, вероятно вече си задавате въпроса как се финансира този журналистически проект.

От създаването си BIRD се финансираше от подаяния в нашето журналистическо чекмедже.
Но на чекмеджето му мина времето. Даже прокуратурата затвори онова Чекмедже, знаете кое…
Нашето финансиране влиза в крак с епохата. Фондонабиращата ни кампания вече се казва

#МятайСБЪРД

Дарявай за BIRD и мятай павета в блатото с корумпирани политици и други тарикати.
Те тайно премятат пари от твоя джоб в своя. Те размятат безнаказано лукса си пред очите на всички. Няма кой да ги накаже ако се надяваш на държавата.
Мятай, за да ги накажеш ти. Да дариш за разследващите журналисти е гаранция, че гадостите, с които силните на деня те замерят, ще им се върнат.
Можеш да метнеш веднъж, за да ти олекне!
Но по-добре е да мяташ редовно всеки месец и да се чувстваш трайно удовлетворен.
А най-добре е да доведеш приятели и да мятаме редовно заедно в екип. С мощен залп!
*За кръстник на новата ни фондонабираща кампания избрахме другарката Ваня. Благодарим й за вдъхновението!