r/technology • u/ArgentineBeauty • 18h ago

Society Ukraine Struck Yandex Data Centers, Russian Bots Went Silent—Now Questions Are Mounting

https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/ukraine-struck-yandex-data-centers-russian-bots-went-silent-now-questions-are-mounting-23339
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196

u/mrblahhh 17h ago

with this happening why cant someone make scripts to auto ID these bots on all the social medias so end users know they are bots.

349

u/crash41301 17h ago

They easily could. Do you not remember when X / Twitter did this and walked it back immediately once it was clear their platform was mostly bot and foreign influencing parading as American? 

132

u/Thefrayedends 17h ago

There's a reason many subs made it against the rules to call out bots and shills lol.

63

u/DidIJustWitnessThat 17h ago

Got banned yesterday from a sub for doing just that. Lol.

The Internet is dead, about the only thing we can do now is help accelerate it's downfall.

27

u/BerryLanky 17h ago edited 10h ago

I’ve been part of Reddit subs with two hundred people. Then overnight it jumped to thousands. And we got flooded with posts. Once you realize at least half the users on any given thread are bots you start to question why you are wasting your time. You might be the only human in a comment section

3

u/goblin_humppa27 16h ago

I had a weird black mirror type experience where I tried to call out a bot, and more bots replied to me. Their responses didn't even follow what I said.

2

u/Mojozilla 9h ago

I have been part of this happening in real time on reddit. Lol a person asked a question about files and the bot lost the plot and started saying weird shit like "my boss is so silly, but he's a good boss"...in a menopause sub 🤣🤣 the bot glitched a few times. I reported it and by the time I came back a few seconds later, the bot was banned.

25

u/Mojozilla 16h ago

I was banned from r/deadinternettheory for saying that I've noticed all the Trump signs have been taken down in Arkansas.

OP of that thread asked if ppl think all of the trump supporters are bots. I answered and got banned. And muted so I couldn't say anything. I think that sub is sus.

7

u/DidIJustWitnessThat 16h ago

Wouldnt even remotely surprise me to find out that the sub about the Internet just being bots is completely run by bots. Lol.

The irony even. :)

2

u/ThinkTheUnknown 12h ago

Looks like you’re on to something.

https://www.reddit.com/r/theydidthemath/s/4zawBOr5sZ

2

u/Mojozilla 9h ago

Damn! These mods are banning this news and comments. Ugh. Sometimes I even see them in niche subs, bringing up political crap. It's been a nice couple days without their rabid behavior

3

u/Mediocre-Touch-6133 14h ago

Same. I'm banned from askreddit, pourstea, pics and probably several other subs for calling out bots. I've received 3-day suspensions for "abusing the report feature" before. Reddit wants the bots.

13

u/Grow_away_420 17h ago

Traffic and engagement go up, shareholders happy.

1

u/Melicor 16h ago

At a certain point it's just defrauding investors.

2

u/Grow_away_420 15h ago

Investors live in the future. They don't notice they're holding the bag until the bottom falls out from under them

4

u/marktrot 17h ago

Any subs in particular we should know about?

18

u/Odd-String29 17h ago

/r/conservative is one that is mostly bots talking to themselves 

2

u/ChicagoThrowaway422 16h ago

Tiny, non-political, hobby subreddits aren't targeted by bot farms. That's all I know.

2

u/how-does-this-end 16h ago

r/politics banned me for suggesting someone was a shill in 2016

4

u/Intrepid_Year3765 15h ago

to be fair everyone on that sub is a shill, so your point is moot

-2

u/sausage_king_of_kc 17h ago

all of them.

10

u/IAmASolipsist 16h ago

A lot of that though is that even before bots were prevalent the most immature people assume anyone who disagrees with the mist be a bor or a shill. It's just not a productive thing to say and more of a thought terminating statement for someone who doesn't know how to respond to dismiss someone else.

What we really need is the ability to report a suspected bot for Reddit to check. I have encountered people that were pretty clearly botting because anyone disagreeing with them even days after a post was made and deep in the comments, would get an instant 6-10 down votes and a bunch of low effort comments spammed attacking you. Like, people can disagree, but a two upvoter post isn't getting that many people 10 comments deep continuously for days.

3

u/Thefrayedends 16h ago

It's one of those catch 22 situations, you're fucked if you do, you're fucked if you don't. Some subs arrived at it organically as a form of healthy moderation, and others went there as a form of censorship.

Because yes, I've been called a bot, especially for my more structured posts, even with the old ass account and decade and a half of consistent coherence. I've been told a few times that I talk like ChatGPT, despite having never even used that service once lol. Calling someone a bot is just as effective at shutting down a conversation as derailing it or shadow banning it.

2

u/fuck-nazi 16h ago

…. Exactly what a BOT would say! 😂

5

u/notmyworkaccount5 16h ago

That and allowing hiding post history, way way way easier to bots and bad faith actors to hide when you can't see their post history without a 3rd party method.

2

u/end_of_radio 16h ago

I think a happy medium where one can see the post history but maybe with scrambled text would be nice. I live somewhere with a handful of people and I have an obscure job so im very doxable.

Then at least you know im an actual long time poster.

1

u/TheG00dF1ght 15h ago

I hide my history not because I'm a bot but because I mod a nsfw sub and people would go digging and then try and derail the conversation because, heaven forbid, I mod a sub they don't agree with.

It's just easier to keep things on topic and not get hit with personal attacks.

1

u/Sherry_Brandt 17h ago

what about reporting them instead

1

u/redmongrel 16h ago

I’m still banned from r/news for doing that years ago.

0

u/slow70 16h ago

^ dingdingding

23

u/Mysterious-Tie7039 17h ago

They also targeted hate speech and it was disproportionately banning conservatives.

9

u/crash41301 17h ago

Certainly sends a message about your beliefs then huh

5

u/JoeNoble1973 15h ago

That’s why they stopped

1

u/RGrad4104 16h ago

More users means a larger market segment and a higher valuation. Why would any corporation want to intentionally diminish it's size if not forced to do so?

1

u/Few-Improvement-5655 16h ago

Twitch also banned bots and immediately had to roll it back when all their big stars lost 25-75% of their subscribers.

1

u/Jason1920 16h ago
  1. They estimated that around 23 million accounts were bots. Probably much worse now.

Twitter / X has been bots talking to bots for a long time. Practically, a useless site.

1

u/Unfair_Web_8275 15h ago

Reddit also used to have (third party apps) that could tag users.

The owners got rid of it for a reason.

28

u/Billy-Ruffian 17h ago

And lose ad revenue? Think of the shareholders?

1

u/gizamo 14h ago

Reddit doesn't actually give any revenue back to shareholders. They funnel it all to their exec team.

Anyone trading reddit stock is either 1) ignorant of that, 2) gambling on speculation or swing trading, and/or 3) just doesn't really care.

I'd bet that 70% are #1, the other 30% are #2, and probably most are also #3. I've met so many dumb traders that I'm never shocked by how stupid that can be nowadays.

1

u/blkmanta352 17h ago

Unrelated but you made me think of that scene in the movie the incredibles 😂

1

u/Sloofin 17h ago

Totally related

21

u/Autistic_License 17h ago

Same reason they didn't before. Social media is run by oligarchs.

9

u/Mooch07 17h ago

Reddit seems to like the traffic. It inflates their numbers I guess. 

Some Reddit mods also like the traffic. I pointed out a popular AI post in r/interesting and got banned explicitly for pointing out AI. 

4

u/Mysterious-Tie7039 17h ago

Because bots drive engagement which drives ad sales.

They want them.

4

u/DonaldMerwinElbert 17h ago

Because they'd detect you and shut that shit down - they want this.

3

u/OLPopsAdelphia 16h ago

Social media companies know they’re bots. They don’t do anything because bot activity still grows their metrics which looks good for advertisers.

4

u/Maleficent_Price_476 17h ago

No bots , no traffic . No traffic , can't increase ad rates . Lower ad rates, means can only afford a 100 million yatch instead of a 300 million one .

2

u/Enverex 16h ago

Social media platforms could stop them, they don't though as they add to user count and "engagement". It's why Reddit and Discord replacing forums has been so harmful to the internet as a whole, you no-longer have people in charge of the platforms that care about dealing with bad actors.

5

u/-Spzi- 17h ago

That's the interesting question here.

It's great that Ukraine can reduce fakes online, while defending themselves. But with the rise of local LLM, even individuals can do on smaller scales, what a big data center can offer for bots now.

It seems tempting to solve the internet problem militarily, but that won't be the solution. Similar effects can be achieved with distributed infrastructure. Smaller scale operations become feasible.

This intervention just made apparent how big the problem is, and that it's not a nature given. Can we have internet and democracies without these bots please thanks.

6

u/mayorofdumb 17h ago

You need the internet for a bot to work... this isn't using AI, these are just old school bots with canned responses

3

u/Delamoor 16h ago edited 16h ago

Yeah, but have you used local models?

Most are slow as shit, unless you're making them about as intelligent as godbot was. I have apretty decent gaming computer and mess around with text generation and basic image generation sometimes. The GPU on this thing isn't cutting edge, but it's better than most. Depending on the model (and there is a LOT of variety there) it can genuinely sometimes be about as slow as manually typing things. Running multiple local model instances in parallel just grinds everything to a halt.

You can't run a large scale bot operation without a LOT of hardware with which to run it. Tokens don't come free, they take computing capacity.

If you want to make a dent in social media platforms... Only data centres can do it. Or you're using bots so stupid they genuinely could not produce anything better than random noise. Local model generation would be like trying to transport a city worth of people in a hatchback sedan. The number of bots needed to create meaningful astroturfing on the big social media sites is huge.

2

u/-Spzi- 16h ago

Thanks for the correction. You and the other guy are right: Most of my comment was at least ill expressed.

I should have put forward as my main point, that's what I care about: We need to find ways to make our democracies resilient. Against bots, fakes, oligarchs.

2

u/swagonflyyyy 16h ago

Blackwell MaxQ owner here. Can confirm. Even with a $20K GPU like mine this is a David vs Goliath kind of situation, and David isn't winning that one right now.

1

u/daddyjohns 16h ago

the companies already knew they are encouraging this behavior because $$

1

u/spawndoorsupervisor 16h ago

The same reason Reddit doesn't do anything to mitigate it. The bots generate engagement which equates to revenue.

1

u/LevelFix83 15h ago

Because the owner of social media are complicit in the propaganda-based brainwashing of its users. "The algorithm" is shorthand for them deciding what you should know.

1

u/doctor_lobo 15h ago

Because the social media companies like the traffic and engagement that these bots generate.

1

u/MultiMidden 15h ago

Because the SM companies don't want to stop them, they drive engagement which in turn drives up advertising revenue.

1

u/Mediocre-Touch-6133 14h ago

Social media wants the bots. They drive engagement and push their narratives. If all the bots disappeared tomorrow, places would be a ghost town and investors would pull out.

1

u/SirPseudonymous 13h ago

why cant someone make scripts to auto ID these bots

The identified traffic decrease is in search indexing webcrawlers that already identify themselves as belonging to yandex. Websites already know what the bots are and who owns them, because that's how those things work.

Everything else is people psyching themselves up by looking at all the right wing freaks posting from the US being asleep at night, and from bot farms in the US and Israel not being as active when the population they're targeting is asleep, and then just saying shit based on vibes.

100% chance most of the "people" pushing this story are bots, like the OP that posted this "news" article in the first place.

1

u/Zungate 13h ago

Because it's easier to sell advertisement if you have more traffic.