📣 Russian bot networks 𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧...or not?

Imagine having 𝟒 𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐬, and getting just 𝟏𝟓 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞𝐬. https://datadronesdisinfo.substack.co... That’s what people are noticing after Ukraine struck three russian Yandex data centers. Propaganda accounts haven’t stopped posting, but some simply lost the bots making them look popular. Because having millions of followers doesn’t necessarily mean having millions of real people listening. Especially when automated networks can manufacture engagement at an industrial scale. This is why (russian) influence operations have two layers: First, the voices spreading Kremlin narratives. Second, the amplifiers. Automated accounts liking, sharing and pushing those narratives into everyone’s feeds. They don’t create the propaganda but make it look popular. And that artificial popularity can influence recommendation algorithms, pushing content beyond the original audience and creating the impression that certain opinions are far more widespread than they actually are. And suddenly, millions of followers translate into 15 likes. Some automated-looking accounts are reportedly even losing their own polls. I’ve noticed this myself. The 𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 has dropped. Accounts normally swarming my Ukraine posts seem unusually quiet. Others report similar experiences in American and European communities, particularly around pro-Trump and pro-AfD narratives. Some even claim online support for Germany’s AfD dropped by 56%. But be careful - that 56% figure is unsubstantiated. There is no source data proving it. And claims that Ukraine eliminated 99% of russian bots are misleading. Cloudflare’s figures concern automated Yandex traffic. Bots include web crawlers, scrapers and API clients, not necessarily propaganda accounts. A drop in automated web traffic therefore doesn’t automatically translate into a comparable drop in social media manipulation. Those are different systems, and we shouldn’t confuse them. Correlation is not causation, and while our micro-level observations are encouraging, we lack macro-level data at scale to prove it all. We need longer-term comparisons of engagement, posting frequency and amplification patterns across known influence networks before drawing conclusions. 📉 Still, Yandex outages have proven to disrupt banking, hosting, cloud hosting, AI systems, LLMs, translation and other infrastructure supporting influence operations. Such services can be important dependencies for automated propaganda networks, from generating content in multiple languages to managing accounts and coordinating activity. Although sophisticated networks also operate through foreign servers, so while this is a nice setback, it won’t solve the problem. As their objective isn’t necessarily creating fake posts. It’s manufacturing consensus, making fringe narratives appear mainstream. The real weapon isn’t the lie, but the illusion that everyone believes it. So you will believe it too. This is how artificial engagement can become real-world influence. People are more likely to accept an opinion when they believe everyone around them already agrees with it. ☝️ But before celebrating Western democracy being saved by drone strikes, we will need more evidence than gut feeling. As political philosopher Vlad Vexler argues, russian interference aims to infect our democracies with its post-truth disease. And just because claims are already treated as facts by the public doesn’t mean we should mindlessly repeat them because we like them. That’s exactly the populism that got us into this mess. And ironically, spreading unverified claims about russian disinformation would mean participating in the very information disorder we’re supposedly fighting. But skepticism doesn’t exclude optimism. Russia spent years building sovereign digital infrastructure, concentrating vulnerabilities inside its borders. Digital sovereignty also means digital vulnerability 😈 Ukraine is demonstrating that with drones. Infrastructure designed to reduce dependence on foreign technology also creates physical targets that must be protected. And unlike software vulnerabilities, you cannot simply patch a data center after a drone strike. We haven’t proven russian propaganda networks collapsed. But their infrastructure isn’t untouchable. And the sudden absence of audiences pushed russian bot networks into the spotlight - a good thing! If millions of accounts suddenly stop applauding... How many real people were ever in the audience?