ThinkCritical.eu · Manipulation atlas
Images, video and accountsCoordinated behaviour
Many accounts post the same thing at the same time – an organised campaign posing as spontaneous opinion.
When the same opinion comes from dozens of “independent” people, it seems widely shared. Organised campaigns exploit this: a network of accounts – often fake – posts from one template at the same time to create the impression of a spontaneous wave. Platforms call this coordinated inauthentic behaviour.
Within four minutes after midnight, fifteen comments appear under an article about a new road. They all read almost the same, down to the same typo. The accounts are a few weeks old and use landscapes or flowers instead of photos of people.
How to spot it
- The same or almost the same sentence, the same typos and hashtags across many accounts.
- Posts arrive in a wave – dozens within a few minutes, often at an unusual hour.
- The accounts were created around the same time, have few followers and impersonal profile pictures.
- The accounts like and share each other's posts and focus on a single topic.
How to check and what to do
- Search for the exact wording of the comment in quotation marks, both on the platform and in a search engine.
- Sort matching posts by time and note when each account was created.
- Look at what the accounts posted before – did they all switch topic at once?
- Don't fall for “everyone's saying it”: count real people, not comments. Report a suspicious network to the platform.
Tip: Real people sometimes share identical text too, such as a call to sign a petition. What counts is the combination: matching text, timing and dubious accounts.
Full explanation and exercises:
thinkcritical.eu/en/manipulation-atlas/coordinated