Okay, so if you’re running VPNs everywhere, guess what? Those are just servers, so you may as well just run the bots directly there because the traffic looks the same either way.

And you seem to be saying that the best way for Russia to hide its activity is to have all the activity originate in Russia where its vulnerable to attacks like this?

Remember, this is a state actor. They have access to more ressources than even the largest companies in the world. There are certainly teams and likely organizations dedicated to spreading propaganda on social media. It would be very naive to assume that’s not happening, and that it’s just Russia doing it.

Point 1:

If I am Russia, and I want to manipulate online opinions, do I do that with a massive bot network from inside my own country?

Maybe, but more likely I want the traffic to look organic, so I want to have it come from all over the world including from inside the US itself. Knocking down a data centre would have no impact on me then.

Additionally, I try many approaches simultaneously, hiring actual people to run these accounts and spread my propaganda online too. As a state actor, cost is not really a concern.

Point 2:

If there actually was a reduction in the kind of traffic being discussed, there would be evidence elsewhere, like these right wing communities that people claim have less posts in them now. But that’s just not the case, the measurements that have been taken indicate traffic and engagement remains similar to a week ago.

It’s likely not true. Search engine indexing could easily be 99% of all HTTP requests from Yandex.

Additionally, we can just apply some critical thinking to the situation by imaging ourselves as Russia:

If I am Russia, and I want to manipulate online opinions, do I do that with a massive bot network from inside my own country? Maybe, but more likely I want the traffic to look organic, so I want to have it come from all over the world including from inside the US itself. Knocking down a data centre would have no impact on me then. Additionally, I try many approaches simultaneously, hiring actual people to run these accounts and spread my propaganda online.

Additionally, there is no evidence that post counts in these right wing communities has measurably dropped at all.

I highly doubt there’s many bots on Lemmy.

I happen to work in IT infrastructure, so I knew this was bullshit from the start. Just need to apply the tiniest bit of critical thinking.

You don’t think they already have this?

Why do you think this story blew up so much, being largely misinformation?

This was one of the biggest misinformation/propaganda campaigns I’ve ever seen.

I won’t blame Zelenskyy for the claims, he’s at war and propaganda is a powerful tool. But the rest of the world just casually pilling on without verifying anything? (Including many well known and trusted news networks and big names). Absolutely unacceptable.

Anyone who works in internet infrastructure should have been shutting this theory down from the start, but because the misinformation is “good”, everyone’s fine with it somehow.

This event really made me lose faith in the world’s news organizations.

Hell, right below this post is another one talking about all the Russian bots who have disappeared and all the comments are “confirming” it.