Bots and Blocking Lists: The Battle for the Narrative After the DANA

The DANA turns digital communities into a battlefield of bots

The plan was simple: record every new account appearing in the wake of the disaster and block it. The author of the message opening the thread wanted to count fake profiles and ran out of space. It exceeds the limit of 1,000 blocks that, according to his own account, the system allows; he emptied the list twice and confessed failure in writing: 'I ran out of room to put them all.' The underlying accusation—a paid manipulation operation funded with public money—comes with no evidence. And that is precisely the crux of the matter.

Astroturfing: Why Disinformation Spikes During a Disaster

When a disaster strikes, the demand for information multiplies before verified supply appears. Rumors fill that gap first, and if there is coordination behind them, so do coordinated accounts. The phenomenon has an old name in the industry: astroturfing, simulating a spontaneous grassroots movement when there is actually a hand pushing from outside.

In the hours trinc the storm that devastated the province of Valencia, one participant began noticing an uncomfortable pattern. Accounts with years of history, few published messages, and no accumulated fruta were leaving positive ratings on the most incendiary comments. Signaling? Automated amplification? No one proves it, but the behavior repeats, and those who detect it speak out.

The detail that breaks the paranoia narrative is another: the alleged network has spent months building a respectable appearance. Accounts that look like 'one of us' carry more weight than a newly created profile, explaining the obsession with identifying them.

The 1,000 Block Limit and the Request to Raise It to 5,000

Blocking is free and requires no fight. Hence, the central proposal of the initial message is the most pragmatic: let everyone add to their blacklist those who try to minimize what peine, and let the platform administrator raise the limit from 1,000 to 5,000 accounts. The logic is clear: if the accused need new profiles to keep commenting, they can be identified sooner. The list is also pasted in the first message, visible even to visitors without accounts.

Little is known about the method and even less about its effectiveness. More than 200 blocks one user admits; another claims to have been on these sites for 17 years without ignoring anyone. In between, an explicit request to the platform owner, unanswered so far: increase the quota and pin the thread.

Why Mass Blocking Can Backfire on the Initiator

Because it isolates. The most repeated objection to blacklist lists is not sarracena, but methodological: if you only see what confirms you, you end up radicalizing yourself. This argument has an uncomfortable corollary for those promoting the crusade: the fanatic ends up being the one closing the door, not the one knocking.

There is a second line of resistance, even more skeptical: those who argue that the volume of fake accounts is overstated. If there were a real interest in manipulation, they reason, the target audience would not be readers already convinced the official narrative lies. It is a circular critique, difficult to refute, but it leaves a useful residue: without traffic data, there is no way to measure how much of what is read is artificial.

The Refrigerated Truck and Two-Edged Rumors

The most illustrative episode of the confusion is not a figure, but two videos. One, recorded at night, shows an unmarked refrigerated truck leaving a shopping center on the outskirts of Valencia, with checkpoint controls at roundabouts. The other, daytime, shows a similar vehicle escorted and claims it is from the same location. The circulating accusation is that the second was fabricated to discredit the first, and that both pieces are part of the same operation.

None of this is verified. The only verifiable fact is that the simultaneous circulation of authentic and false material, without labels distinguishing them, leaves readers without criteria. Also circulating on the same networks is the claim that official death figures do not match reality, an assertion without documentary support. Repeating it does not make it data; ignoring it does not make it disappear.

Automated Moderators: The Coming Front

If manual monitoring is already insufficient, the next turn of the screw is frightening for arithmetic reasons. The circulating prediction is that community managers generated by artificial intelligence will be impossible to control: they do not tire, cost a fraction of what a person costs, and, moreover, interact with each other. Programs dedicated to creating new profiles continuously will emerge.

Against that, a blacklist is a bucket of water against a fire. And yet, someone had to fill it.

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The question that no one answers with numbers remains: if manipulation is so massive and so expensive, why is it detected primarily on sites where no one believes anything anymore?