An online activist group is trying to bring down Donald Trump's Truth Social network from the inside before the 2024 election, according to a report.
The North Atlantic Fella Organization, which was founded last year to battle pro-Russia propaganda related to the invasion of Ukraine, launched a campaign last month to dominate trending topics on the website. It has proven to be so successful they believe they can take down Truth Social entirely, reported WIRED.
“The goal we have in mind, which is lofty, is to help bring the platform down ahead of the 2024 election,” said Rock Kenwell, the pseudonymous leader of NAFO.
"We know it's going to be an aggregator for extremism and probably violence the way things are looking at this point."
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The social media platform, launched by Trump in early 2022 after he was kicked off platforms like Facebook and Twitter, has failed to catch on much beyond QAnon conspiracists and other right-wingers supportive of the former president, although NAFO decided to get involved on the site after President Joe Biden's campaign joined it.
“It's a very easy platform to manipulate," Kenwell said. "It's a very primitive social media environment."
Kenwell launched his first campaign on Oct. 31 to take over trending topics with anti-MAGA hashtags, and his group's effort was so successful he said Truth Social had to briefly shut down new app downloads and account registrations, although WIRED noted that had periodically happened before and the publication could not verify a link to the NAFO campaign.
“These guys are way easier to trigger than the Russian spambots over on Twitter,” wrote NAFO member Pinkeye McGrew in a private Truth Social group.
NAFO next plans to target paid advertisers on the site with a database of fake ads, Kenwell told Wired.
“So, all of a sudden, it's just a glut of fake ads,” Kenwell said. “It's really easy to fake ads on Truth Social … If we can take any ad and get a couple of thousand false versions of that ad running, nobody can really identify what is the original ad anymore and what's fake.”
