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136

Is Zelensky right to say data centre strikes have taken down Russian bots? (www.bbc.com)

submitted 3 weeks ago by schizoidman@lemmy.zip to c/world@lemmy.world

28 comments fedilink hide all child comments

cross-posted from : https://lemmy.zip/post/73193700

Claims that Ukrainian strikes on Russian data centres reduced Kremlin-linked bot networks have spread widely online, but experts have told BBC Verify there is no evidence the attacks have significantly reduced them.

Researchers from dTeam, a US-based group that tracks Moscow-linked influence operations, told BBC Verify there has not been "any traffic change from known Russian accounts and bot clusters on any platform".

Bots linked to pro-Kremlin influence operations like Storm-1516 and Matryoshka - both of which BBC Verify has previously reported on - were still active on social media on Tuesday, evidence shared with BBC Verify by dTeam shows.

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[–] otter@lemmy.ca 16 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Since a lot of people here (myself included) also misinterpreted the recent news, here are some excerpts for those who haven't read the article.

If I had to guess, I'd say that you don't need a data center to run a social media bot that spits out the same generic inflammatory lines all day.

Claims that Ukrainian strikes on Russian data centres reduced Kremlin-linked bot networks have spread widely online, but experts have told BBC Verify there is no evidence the attacks have significantly reduced them.

Viral social media posts have claimed there has been a significant drop in influence operations in recent days, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky suggesting on Monday there was "less hate, less division and fewer provocations" online because of "fewer bots".

But claims these attacks have affected Russian disinformation operations, including accounts posting supportive messages about groups including the Make American Great Again (MAGA) movement in the US and the far-right AfD party in Germany, appear to have come from a misinterpretation of data produced by tech firm Cloudflare.

Some social media users have been sharing charts of Cloudflare data which show bot activity using Yandex's network has declined.

While bots are commonly associated with fake social media accounts that may post false, divisive and inflammatory content, they are also used to automate tasks like scanning web pages so they appear on search engines.

Cloudflare clarified its data includes all automated internet requests to websites hosted on its network, including bots crawling websites for information.

The company also said the drop off was "not necessarily bot behaviour on social media platforms".

Researchers from dTeam, a US-based group that tracks Moscow-linked influence operations, told BBC Verify there has not been "any traffic change from known Russian accounts and bot clusters on any platform".

They added that if the offices of known groups involved in these operations "were in flames then we would see a change".

Bots linked to pro-Kremlin influence operations like Storm-1516 and Matryoshka - both of which BBC Verify has previously reported on - were still active on social media on Tuesday, evidence shared with BBC Verify by dTeam shows.

[–] Taldan@lemmy.world 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

If I had to guess, I’d say that you don’t need a data center to run a social media bot that spits out the same generic inflammatory lines all day.

Nah, they almost certainly are using compute. The main thing people are getting wrong is disaster recovery. These days you can have automatic, seamless failover. You could nuke a data center in active use and barely notice a blip as an end user

I doubt the Russian government would be using advanced modern failover though. I assume they're lile the US government. Old school failover with modern data center atchitecture. Parity across data centers, when the primary site goes offline, secondary spins up. Downtime between minutes and hours depending on how well it's designed

We won't know for sure for a decade or more, but I'd expect Russian government compute to have been running at those data centers, and I'd expect a disaster recovery plan to have made that attack little more than a blip for them. I envy the data scientists at social media giants that will be able to dig through the data

And for the record, you did not misread the news. It's intentional disinformarion. This is a war, and wars are rife with propaganda

[–] otter@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 weeks ago

It's intentional disinformarion. This is a war, and wars are rife with propaganda

The problem is that this could also end up furthering disinformation.

If a user without tech knowledge interprets this news as "the fake right wing bots were shut down", but still sees accounts on their social media posting during that time, they might start to believe that those accounts are real people in their community.

I hope there was a dip in social media bots, but I don't want to be saying that unless I see more evidence for it. The existing evidence mentioned in the article has been followed up with clarifications / retractions by the people that shared it

Cloudflare clarified what their graph represents
The Czech member of Parliament, who shared a popular post, "has since said he 'did not present it as a clear fact'"
"Zelensky's office told BBC Verify the president was "talking about the atmosphere on social media" rather than a fall in bot activity. It added it had seen "reports of fewer provocative and hateful comments" from many social media users."

To be clear, I appreciate your explanation and I agree that it's plausible. It is also possible that both things are true (they use data centers, but the fake accounts people were monitoring are running out of different data centers).