Several accounts named after Maine towns with the acronym “GOP” have long saturated the #mepolitics Twitter hashtag with hateful remarks, exaggerated news stories, and occasional retweets from accounts with ties to white nationalism, but one concerned (anonymous) citizen is doing something about it. 

With the Twitter account @TrumanChapman27, a lifelong Mainer who we’ll call John (so he won’t get doxxed), documents these “bot accounts” and believes that many of them are connected with the official Maine GOP. John has assembled an 11-member team of other locals who jokingly call themselves “the Troll Network” and work online to uncover these potential connections and demand accountability from the Maine GOP.