At Valent, we've developed new vocabulary to describe the actors behind online manipulation campaigns. In this first entry of the Valent Glossary, we introduce the Validator — and explain exactly what role it plays in coordinated inauthentic behaviour.
Online manipulation doesn't happen in isolation. Behind every coordinated disinformation campaign is a network of accounts, each playing a specific role. At Valent, we've spent years mapping these networks — and in doing so, we've developed our own vocabulary to describe what we find. This is the Valent Glossary: a series designed to give communications professionals, policy teams, and the public the language they need to understand what's happening online.
In this first entry, we introduce the Validator.
A Validator is a specific type of online account created for the purpose of artificially increasing the visibility and apparent legitimacy of other accounts — most commonly Seeders, which are the accounts responsible for first introducing a false narrative into circulation.
Validators are, in essence, the infrastructure layer of a manipulation campaign. They exist not to spread content directly, but to make other accounts appear more credible, more influential, and more worthy of algorithmic attention.
Validators operate along two primary vectors.
First, they provide a follower boost. By following and engaging with Seeder accounts, Validators inflate the apparent audience of those accounts. Social media platforms — and the people using them — tend to treat accounts with larger followings as more authoritative. A narrative promoted by an account with 50,000 followers looks very different from the same narrative promoted by an account with 500. Validators manufacture that difference.
Second, they deceive social media algorithms. Platforms like X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, and Instagram use engagement signals — follows, likes, shares, replies — to determine which content surfaces more widely. When Validators engage with Seeder accounts and their content, they send false signals to these algorithms, causing the platform to treat the content as more popular or credible than it actually is. The result is amplified reach for narratives that would otherwise struggle to break through.
We identified Validator accounts in operation during our investigation into coordinated anti-ULEZ activity online in 2023. Sadiq Khan's clean air policy in London became the target of a sustained disinformation campaign, and when we mapped the network driving it, we found Validator accounts functioning exactly as described above — boosting the reach of accounts spreading false or misleading claims about the policy and its effects.
That investigation was subsequently covered by The Guardian and featured on The Rest Is Politics podcast, bringing the mechanics of online manipulation into mainstream public discourse.
Understanding the Validator is important precisely because it's invisible by design. When a narrative appears to be gaining organic traction, it's tempting to treat it as a genuine signal of public sentiment. But if that traction is being manufactured by a network of Validator accounts, responding to it as though it were organic leads to the wrong decisions — and often makes the problem worse.
Identifying Validator networks is one of Ariadne's core capabilities. By analysing follower-to-following ratios, account creation dates, profile authenticity signals, and engagement patterns across a network, Ariadne can distinguish between genuine audience growth and artificial amplification — giving communications teams the intelligence they need to respond appropriately.
In the next Valent Glossary entry, we'll introduce the Spreader — and explain how narratives move from the first point of injection to mass distribution.
