What is a sock puppet account?

A sock puppet account is defined as a person whose actions are controlled by another. It is a reference to the manipulation of a simple hand puppet made from a sock and is often used to refer to alternative online identities or user accounts used for purposes of deception. Online, it came to be used to refer to a false identity assumed by a member of an internet community who spoke to, or about, themselves while pretending to be another person.

The use of the term has expanded to now include other misleading uses of online identities, such as those created to praise, defend, or support a person or organization, to manipulate public opinion, or to circumvent restrictions, such as viewing a social media account that they are blocked from, suspension, or an outright ban from a website. A significant difference between a pseudonym and a sock puppet is that the latter poses as a third party independent of the main account operator. Sock puppets are unwelcome in many online communities and forums. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sock_puppet_account

Why do people create sock puppet accounts?

One reason for sock puppeting is to circumvent a block, ban, or other forms of sanction imposed on the person’s original account. A sockpuppet is a false online name and profile created to hide the author’s identity, usually because of personal, political, or financial ties to whatever is being discussed or reviewed. (News Literacy Project, Para. 2)

Sock puppet account vandalizes OSM

Recently, there was some kind of map vandalism incidents where a user created a sock puppet account identifying as a character from a children’s TV show and then vandalized the map of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and other nearby areas on OSM by adding fictional features like fictional parks and roads, and inventing names for paths, sidewalks, and address interpolation ways. The user who did that got a one-year block and then created new OSM accounts to evade blocks and those accounts were blocked too. That was the summary of what happened. I’ll now go into full depth about those sock puppet accounts and the recent vandalism.

The Vandalism

January 6, 2023: A user created an OSM account under the name “Abby Hatcher”, named after the character from the preschool series of the same name. The user would start to vandalize OSM for the first time, and after making 16 contributions, the user got blocked for out-and-out vandalism.

2 months later on March 2, 2023, I was exploring the map and went into Fizzie41’s user profile which he is a moderator and a member of OSM’s Data Working Group (DWG) and then I went to explore user blocks given by Fizzie41 and I stumbled on a user block given to OSM user Abby Hatcher. The block message said that the user was blocked for vandalism. The reason why I stumbled upon that block is because the user blocked was Abby Hatcher and my English 11 teacher’s name is Ms. Hatcher, so they both have the same last name, but because I did not know that Abby Hatcher is a children’s show at that time and I never heard of it before, I honestly thought Abby Hatcher was a real human that vandalized the map of Toronto and was thinking if my English 11 teacher and Abby Hatcher were somehow related or not. When I went into the user’s profile, the user’s profile picture had a 3D CGI-animated character that I did not who it was, and didn’t even recognize the character in the user’s profile picture. I read the user’s account description which is most likely a description of the show Abby Hatcher, but it wasn’t enough to make me know that Abby Hatcher is a children’s show that aired on TVOKids and on Nickelodeon’s Nick Jr. block. I honestly thought the account’s owner went crazy in the account description because it contained a word that was completely unknown to me or would be unknown to anyone, it was “fuzzly”, and I was thinking how can she even save the day? Even Grammarly couldn’t recognize the word “fuzzly”, it just marks it as misspelled and gives me a suggestion to correct my spelling by changing it to “fuzzy”. When I type “fuzzly” in Google Docs, a message box appears saying “Unrecognized word”. It turned out that the user account was actually created by a person who probably watched that show and is a fan of it.

I then went into that’s users map edits and saw the contributions made by said user, and the user’s map edits were mostly in the Toronto area. Some of the user’s edits seemed legit while the other edits were vandalism by adding fictional roads, parks, railways, and other fictional features. Another user commented about his changes to the map. 8 of that user’s contributions were reverted fully or partially. User WoodWoseWulf reported that user account to the DWG for vandalism and OSM moderator Graeme Fitzpatrick aka Fizzie41 reverted https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/131123812 and placed a one-year block on the vandalizing account.

Late March 2023: The same person that created the OSM account named Abby Hatcher created a new OSM account under the name Abby Hatcher Official on March 25, 2023, and the character in the user’s profile picture started to seem familiar to me but I still didn’t know who that character was. The user put a link to a YouTube short in the account description and when I clicked on it, I ran into a page saying “This video is no longer available because the uploader has closed their YouTube account.” The user started vandalizing OSM again, this time in places near the Toronto area. The user vandalized the map by inventing names for features that don’t actually have a common name. One of the user’s changesets, https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/134091122, named a line that is part of a political boundary relation as “Highway 401 Line” and added a name or changed the name of 2 motorway junctions. The user then began adding names on lines part of administrative or political boundary relations, added names on address interpolation ways, and added a fictional railway track near a church (seen in https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/134091199). Fizzie41 then placed a 10-year block on that user for vandalism and being yet another sock puppet account, and reverted all the user’s changesets.

April 2, 2023: 7 days later, the user behind the sock puppet accounts started to evade blocks given by Fizzie41 by creating new OSM accounts and created a user account under the name AbbyHatcherTheVideoEditor2K10 on April 1, 2023, and started vandalizing OSM again by adding fictional features, inventing names for sidewalks, and adding names for features that don’t have a common name. Fizzie41 blocked the account and reverted all its changesets.

6 days later on April 8, 2023, the user evaded another block by creating an OSM account under the name AbbyHatcherVideoLogoEditor7905 and the account’s profile picture had some kind of a cartoon version of Abby Hatcher. The user began adding names on address interpolation ways and added 2 fictional motorways. Fizzie41 reverted the user’s changesets and placed a 10-year block on the user for vandalism & sock-puppet.

April 23, 2023: 7 days later, the user evaded yet-another block by creating an OSM account under the name AbbyHatcherTheVideoEditor3901 on April 15, 2023, and added a link to his YouTube channel in the account description (The user’s youtube channel has recently been terminated, don’t know why, but he got a new YouTube account). The character in the account’s profile picture became familiar to me but yet I still didn’t know who that character was. I clicked on the link to the user’s YouTube channel and began looking at his YouTube shorts. I then saw 4 of the user’s YouTube shorts containing a character that was already familiar to me because I saw it in the profile pictures of the OSM accounts under the names “Abby Hatcher”, “Abby Hatcher Official”, “AbbyHatcherTheVideoEditor2K10”, “AbbyHatcherVideoLogoEditor7905”, and “AbbyHatcherTheVideoEditor3901”. I saw the titles of those YouTube shorts contained “Abby Hatcher” and I started to realize something. So I decided to Google search Abby Hatcher and I began to learn that Abby Hatcher is not a real human that has been vandalizing OSM recently. Abby Hatcher is actually a Canadian children’s animated show containing a character of the same name, and a user created those sock puppet accounts on OSM and named them after Abby Hatcher. I also learned that the animated character in the profile picture of the user’s sock puppet accounts is Abby Hatcher from that children’s show. But I didn’t know what a sock puppet account was at that time. So I Google searched sock puppet account and started to learn what it actually means.

The user made a legit edit to the map by adjusting a node on a road in https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/134926692 and did not cause vandalism. He then named a line part of the Hillsboro, Oregon administrative boundary relation as “Extra Line” in https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/134926717. It’s unknown if it was vandalism. OSM moderator Andy Townsend aka SomeoneElse reverted the edit and placed a 10-year block on the user for evading a previous block.

I then commented in the changeset discussion of changeset/134926717 with the comment telling user AbbyHatcherTheVideoEditor3901 not to “create OSM accounts just to evade blocks” and it appears that he has been “naming his OSM accounts after some animated character from some children’s TV show” because I have never heard of that show before until this time. I commented on https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/134091218 saying “it looks like someone was pretending to be some children’s TV show character causing vandalism on OSM” and commented a link to Abby Hatcher fandom.com page.

3 days later on April 26, 2023, I commented on https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/131123812 saying that “the creator of this changeset disguised him/herself as a character from that children’s show that aired on TVOKids and Nick Jr. and vandalized OSM. Whoever was behind that sock puppet account then created similar OSM accounts to evade blocks.” I commented the links to the sock puppet accounts the changeset author created on OSM, and that “those accounts were blocked too and they’re also sock puppet accounts.” User WoodWoseWulf then commented on the changeset saying that he has “reported several of these accounts and Fizzie (as a DWG member) has been a great help in banning them.”

April 27, 2023: The user behind those sock puppet accounts then evaded yet-another block by creating a user account under the name AbbyHatcherTheVideoEditor8998 on April 26, 2023, and added the website link http://official.abby-hatcher.com/ in the account description which appears to look like a link to the official Abby Hatcher website and when I clicked on it, I got an error page saying “This site can’t be reached” with the error code “DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN”. The user was back to cause vandalism on OSM again by adding 2 fictional parks in https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/135385241 and added a fictional park and added names for 2 address interpolation ways in https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/135402096. Andy Townsend aka SomeoneElse reverted the account’s changesets and placed a 10-year block on the account. I commented in the changeset discussion telling user AbbyHatcherTheVideoEditor8998 that he has been “told not create OSM accounts just to evade blocks” because “it is not OK and it’s a violation of OSM’s Terms of Use”, and also told him to “stop adding fictional features on OSM such as adding nonexistent parks”, and to “stop inventing names for paths or address interpolation ways”, and “all that vandalism must stop now.” The user account, AbbyHatcherTheVideoEditor8998, has since been deleted.

The Aftermath

Please note that the Abby Hatcher sockpuppet accounts on OSM are not in any way affiliated with Nickelodeon, Nick Jr., or TVOntario, and the mentioned TV networks and the creators and producers of Nick Jr.’s/TVOKids’ Abby Hatcher never created those accounts. After the vandal created those sock puppet accounts, vandalized OSM, and evaded blocks to vandalize OSM again, there are some other things I saw the map vandal do.

4 days later on April 30, 2023, OSM user AbbyHatcherTheVideoEditor3901 became a moderator, which is why you see the blue star next to his username. That account is still blocked. I just stumbled upon it today. When did that user account become a moderator? (Update: The blue star next to his username has since been removed, meaning that user account is no longer a moderator.)

April 30, 2023, 9:41 p.m. EDT: I didn’t expect to stumble upon this just now, the map vandal played an episode of Abby Hatcher as seen in his YouTube live stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H2qdOcY3eI It’s seen at the 4:52 mark. There is no sound because the user turned off the sound on his computer.

May 1, 2023, 12:32 a.m. EDT: The next day on May 1, 2023, I watched YouTube live stream “Gartic Phone Live Stream”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=727YHz0R1HQ The user used StreamYard to live stream on YouTube. In the live stream, I saw a person’s face in their webcam, but I don’t know if it’s the person that created the Abby Hatcher sock puppet accounts and vandalized OSM.

May 1, 2023, 7:44 a.m. EDT: Happy 52nd anniversary to America’s passenger rail company, Amtrak, founded on this day on May 1, 1971. Amtrak’s 52nd birthday is not in any way related to the map vandalism I saw on OSM lately. No vandalism spotted on OSM today.

Should you see that vandal vandalize OSM again, feel free to let me know.

Update (July 9, 2023)

I’m back on OSM after a while. Anyways, look who’s back to cause some vandalism on OSM… again. It’s that sock puppet. The vandal created an account named AbbyHatcherTheSonyVegasProEditor5730 on May 16, 2023, and added fictional features to the map again. That sock puppet account got banned by Fizzie41 8 days ago. I believe the vandal also created the Annoying Orange sock puppet account on May 21, 2023, and continued to vandalize OSM. Fizzie41 blocked that account and reverted all its changesets. The vandal may also have created the Yurihogs accounts on OSM.

The vandal created an account named AbbyHatcherTheVideoLogoGuysEditSony on June 3, 2023, and another account named AbbyHatcherTheVideoEditor3903HD on June 29, 2023, and those accounts were blocked by Andy Townsend aka SomeoneElse for evading previous blocks. The vandal created an account under the name AbbyHatcherTheJumboVideoEditor on July 6, 2023, and added a fictional motorway in https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/138205876, added a house named “Aidan Gould’s House”, and added a railway corridor. I believe no one has reported the account and the account has not been blocked by any OSM moderator. I don’t know why the vandal added a fictional motorway next to Sangro Loop. (Update: The fictional motorway next to Sangro Loop has since been reverted by another user.)

Update (September 4, 2023): How long will this vandalism continue?

How long will this sock-puppet continue to vandalize OSM? It seems like the vandal won’t stop adding fictional features on the map despite being given warnings not to vandalize the map and being blocked by moderators. Please be on the lookout for that sock-puppet, as he may go by different usernames. The sock-puppet has gone by many different usernames over the past 8 months starting with AbbyHatcher, Yurihogs, Annoying Orange, N the Creator, Aiden Gould, and ThomasTheTankEngine.

Update (December 10, 2025)

It’s been two years since I last updated this diary entry. Thought this vandal/sockpuppet has grown out of this sort of game? But no, the vandal has continued to vandalize OSM over the past two years by adding fictional features and adding fictional names for address interpolation ways, paths, and boundaries. The vandal/sockpuppet also used Revert UI to revert the changesets that reverted their vandalism, causing the moderators to revert the vandalism again. The sockpuppet has gone by many different usernames starting with ThomasTheTankEngine, Lynn Grantz, AdamLanza, Bubble, and Bubble’s Hotel.