Date: 5th of January, 2025

1. Overview

On January 1, 2025, several coordinators of the Anti-Discrimination Students Movement—key organizers of the historic Student–People’s Uprising—found their Facebook profiles abruptly removed. This unexpected action highlighted the growing vulnerability of social media platforms to mass reporting campaigns. These campaigns exploit automated moderation systems to silence individuals, disrupt movements, and remove content under the guise of community standards enforcement.

Mass reporting is a coordinated effort where a large number of users or automated bots flood a platform's moderation system with complaints against a specific account, profile, or page. This technique is often exploited to manipulate content moderation systems, leading to the temporary or permanent removal of accounts or pages, regardless of whether they violated platform policies.

2. Mechanics of Mass Reporting

2.1 Identification of Target

The attacker identifies a specific account, profile, or page to be targeted. Targets are often high-profile individuals, businesses, or groups.

2.2 Mobilization of Resources

Human Networks: Organizing a group of individuals through social media platforms, forums, or private messaging apps.
Automated Systems: Leveraging bots or scripts to scale the reporting process.

2.3 Submission of Reports

Users or bots submit multiple reports against the target, often selecting predefined categories such as hate speech, spam, harassment, or misinformation.

2.4 Exploitation of Platform Moderation

Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter rely heavily on automated systems to handle the volume of reports. Mass reporting creates a perception of severe violations, triggering temporary bans or removal for investigation.

2.5 Outcome

The target account is temporarily suspended, pending review, or permanently removed if the volume of reports overwhelms the moderation system.