Thread by @DisinfoLab

The Birth of a #TrollFarm:

We have shown you how a troll farm works & we have busted a few in our previous reports but today we will show you how these troll farms come into existence. How they are established & tested before being handed over to the actual operators. (1/5)

Phase 1: Origination
We have a list of 102 accounts, all of these accounts send their 1st reply to an account AnnaAmaury & in Japanese language
Img1: Max follower count is 4, while max status count is 800 rep. by node size
Img2: 58 accounts are created in Jan(2/5)@TwitterSafety

In the origination and testing phase these accounts only reply and that too to a particular account. All of them reply the same thing, giving a hint that these are bot operated. (3/5)

Phase:2 Testing for survival

These accounts are tested against the twitter surveillance that checks for suspicious accounts.
The troll farm is used to defame someone or to make someone famous and get high engagement in the testing phase. (4/5) @TwitterSupport

Phase 3: Hand-over

The accounts that survive from twitter and are not suspended are now handed over to their specific buyers These accounts change their bio and start to tweet & reply in the language of the region they are supposed to be operated from.(5/5)
#FightDisinformation