the.com/troll farm
A cubicle army that doesn't grow crops, it grows outrage, one fake account at a time.
means An organized operation where paid workers run armies of fake social media accounts to spread propaganda, sow discord, or manipulate public opinion.
from Built from two separate borrowings: 'troll' in the internet sense emerged in 1990s online culture, from the fishing technique of trolling — dragging bait slowly behind a boat to provoke a bite — reinterpreted as provoking reactions online (folk links to the ugly cave-dwelling troll of Scandinavian myth are popular but secondary, riding on the coincidence of spelling). 'Farm' is the older industrial metaphor — a 'farm' as a site of mass, factory-like production, seen in 'server farm' or 'content farm.' Fuse the two and you get what the phrase names plainly: a facility that mass-produces provocation instead of crops.
- origin
- Term traces to early 2010s Russian operations
- output
- One worker can run dozens of fake personas daily
- goal
- Not winning arguments, just making truth exhausting
- business model
- Often paid per post, like outrage piecework