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
37.9k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

2.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

89

u/win_awards 14h ago

What questions could possibly need asking here? Are there people who don't realize that Russia has been operating bot farms to influence foreign opinion in an effort to undermine other countries for at least the past ten years?

44

u/-Saltfish- 14h ago

What questions could possibly need asking here?

How about why is a sitting US president working with an archenemy to undermine domestic elections

16

u/win_awards 14h ago

Ok, but we have been asking that since at least 2018.

6

u/-Saltfish- 14h ago

devastatingly true

3

u/jackofslayers 12h ago

Because conservatism is a deeply evil ideology. that was already known.

1

u/Designer_Show_2658 12h ago

Are they touring the US primaries?

6

u/Exact_Acanthaceae294 14h ago

Yeah, they are called conservatives.

7

u/RareRestaurant6297 13h ago

At least 77 million people in the US alone, yes

3

u/bardghost_Isu 12h ago

I think the only thing shocking to me is the scale of which it seems to have collapsed, I'd expected significant bot farms and some cases like Texas/Ontario seperatists to be artificial movements alongside a still large number of humans, but in some cases this looks like 80%+ of the likes and views some extremists were getting have just vanished.

2

u/giraffevomitfacts 5h ago

Well, one question is whether a decline in automated web traffic is actually evidence of a reduction of bot activity:

https://x.com/ichbinilya/status/2109732026756563054

One chart from internet infrastructure company CloudFlare shows a decline in automated web traffic from Yandex. But this is a measure of things like search engine requests, not social media bots.

Another chart purportedly shows a decline in activity related to Germany’s right-wing AfD party. But it contains obvious errors and is completely unsourced. My view is that it’s entirely fake.

1

u/reroll-life 43m ago

Are there people who don't realize that Russia has been operating bot farms to influence foreign opinion in an effort to undermine other countries for at least the past ten years?

yes people still don't believe it for some reason despite mountains of evidence.