posted in Technology
Ukraine's Zelenskyy Claims Strikes on Russian Data Centers Silenced Social Media Bots
gizmodo.com/ukraines-zelenskyy-claims-strikes-on-russian-data-centers-silenced-social-media-bots-2000825044
Blowing up data centers will not stop troll farms. Troll traffic is not coming from Yandex.
Some of the claims appear to conflate data centers with Russian “troll farms” such as the Internet Research Agency (IRA), which became well-known following a 2015 expose. The IRA operated out of a St. Petersburg office building, not a datacenter operated by Yandex. Nor does there appear to be any particular reason the IRA would require an inordinate amount of network resources.
Replying to @Cytobit@piefed.social
Blowing up data centers will not stop troll farms
I didn’t think that is their goal. I thought their goal was to get Russia to leave their country.
Yea, but troll farms influence US elections, and US elections play a role in the war in Ukraine.
An example of this would be Trump deciding to buy diesel from Russia, which helps Russia fund their war against Ukraine.
So stopping troll farms can help work towards the goal of getting Russia to leave their country.
Replying to @DBT@feddit.online
They influence not only elections but the general opinion about a lot of things.
I have several people close to me who has been sceptical about the reach of Russian disinformation in the years leading up to us joining NATO, and this is just the latest in many events that has proven very useful for showcasing just how integrated that disinformation is in our daily life. This while we are better at countering them than most, supposedly. Just talking about them in school is not enough anymore. They’re fucking cockroaches and more of this is needed. Preferably on a daily basis.
Replying to @kbobabob@lemmy.dbzer0.com
I thought their goal was to get Russia to leave their country.
Well… it’s to debilitate the Russian economy until Russians can no longer force-project across the border.
But anyone who believes Yandex was the soft underbelly of Moscow is going to be disappointed. Russian troops aren’t going to leave because a data center got lit up. On the contrary, this becomes further agitation within Russia to spend an increasing amount of domestic wealth and civilian lives flinging firebombs at Ukrainian infrastructure. With the intended goal of debilitating the Ukrainian economy until Ukrainians can no longer force-project over the border.
This is purely a war of attrition. There’s no target either side could hit that would end it, prior to a national political realignment or a wholesale economic collapse. Even if one side managed to dome off Putin or Zelensky, the war would drag on under their immediate successors.
Replying to @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
And yet /r/conservative went silent. Just like the last time Russian bot farms were targeted.
Replying to @kbobabob@lemmy.dbzer0.com
/r/conservative went silent
The sub has purged itself so many times, I don’t even know who still has the rights to post there.
Nevertheless, I’m seeing new content as recent as 47 minutes ago. Plenty of posts in the last two hours. The same meager activity from a community that has kicked itself in the dick so many times that it no longer has a user base to speak of.