Did Ukrainian strikes on Russian data centres stop disinformation bots?
More or Less

Did Ukrainian strikes on Russian data centres stop disinformation bots?

B2Upper-intermediateOctober 17, 20268 min

Last week, Ukraine launched drone attacks against three data centres owned by Russian tech giant Yandex. After these attacks Yandex announced that they were struggling to maintain their services. This led to widespread claims that Russian disinformation campaign on social media had been affected, as users produced graphs that they argued showed a dramatic decline in suspicious online activity by bots. The claim was even made by the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenksy, saying there was “less hate” online as a result of the strikes. But as the dust settled, it became clear that this wasn’t the...

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campaigns on social media has been affected, as users produced graphs that they argued showed

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president Volodymyr Zelensky at the Warsaw Security Forum. When our strikes reached Yandex

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B2 · Upper-intermediate

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0:00

Hello and thanks for downloading the More or Less podcast. We're your guide to the numbers in the news, life, and Russian disinformation. And I'm Lizzie McNeil. Last week, Ukraine launched drone attacks against three data centres owned by Russian tech giant Yandex. After these attacks, Yandex, perhaps unsurprisingly, announced that they were

0:21

struggling to maintain their services. This led to widespread claims that Russian disinformation campaigns on social media has been affected, as users produced graphs that they argued showed a dramatic decline in suspicious online activity by bots. The claim was even made by the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky at the Warsaw Security Forum. When our strikes reached Yandex

0:47

data centers, it suddenly became a little easier to breeze on many social media platforms. A lot of people, a lot of people noticed it. And there was less hate, less division and fewer provocations because there were fewer boats and it's pretty clear where those boats were coming from.

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