Brigading

Brigading is a form of coordinated online harassment in which an organized group — "a brigade" — descends on a target's posts, account, or community and floods it with hostile replies, mass reports, downvotes, or disruptive content. The goal is to silence, exhaust, or deplatform the target through sheer volume rather than argument. It's the harassment equivalent of mob tactics.

What it means

Brigading is effective because platforms use automated signals — report rates, downvote ratios, reply volumes — to moderate content. A coordinated brigade can trigger those signals against a legitimate account, causing automated systems to flag, restrict, or remove the target without any human review of whether the target actually violated any policy. This means brigading doesn't just harass the target personally; it weaponizes the platform's own moderation infrastructure against them.

Subreddit brigading was a significant problem on Reddit; cross-platform brigading — where Tumblr, Twitter, or Discord communities coordinate to report accounts on other platforms — is documented.

How it works on Gab

Gab's moderation architecture is less susceptible to brigading than algorithmic platforms because moderation decisions are based on actual policy violations rather than automated signal thresholds. Mass reports of a post that doesn't violate policy don't result in automatic removal. Users can still block individuals and report genuine policy violations, but coordinated false reporting campaigns carry less automatic weight.

Related terms

Astroturfing is coordinated inauthentic behavior for propaganda; brigading is for harassment. Cancel culture uses brigading as a tool. Deplatforming is the goal.