Russian bot farms are still trolling, even after Ukraine’s drone strikes on Yandex

在乌克兰对俄罗斯互联网巨头Yandex发动无人机袭击后，俄罗斯的机器人农场仍在继续进行网络骚扰。

Zelenskyy celebrated ‘less division’ on social media after the strikes but the data isn’t backing that up yet.

泽连斯基在袭击发生后称赞社交媒体上的“分裂减少了”，但数据尚未支持这一说法。

Days after Ukrainian military drones took down several Russian data centers, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed that the campaign had hurt Russia’s disinformation efforts. “It suddenly became a little easier to breathe on many social platforms,” Zelenskyy said Monday. “There was less hate, less division, and fewer provocations.”

在乌克兰军用无人机摧毁了几个俄罗斯数据中心几天后，总统弗拉基米尔·泽连斯基声称，这次行动打击了俄罗斯的虚假信息宣传。泽连斯基周一表示：“许多社交平台突然变得更容易呼吸了。仇恨减少了，分裂减少了，挑衅也减少了。”

Zelenskyy isn’t the first to assert that the drone operation, which targeted data centers belonging to the Russian technology company Yandex, has cut down on spam and disinformation campaigns fomented by Russian bot farms. Social media users have claimed they’ve noticed less traffic on posts by MAGA-affiliated accounts, as well as those associated with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. Some have even said they’ve noticed a steep drop in spam calls and messages.

泽连斯基并不是第一个断言此次无人机行动（目标是俄罗斯科技公司Yandex的数据中心）减少了由俄罗斯机器人农场煽动的垃圾信息和虚假宣传活动的人。社交媒体用户声称，他们注意到与“让美国再次伟大”（MAGA）相关的账户以及与德国极右翼政党“德国选择党”（AfD）相关的账户发布的帖子流量有所减少。有些人甚至表示，他们注意到垃圾电话和信息大幅减少。

But these people are wrong. The drone strikes appear to have affected Yandex’s web crawlers, not any disinformation or political operations.

但这些人错了。无人机袭击似乎影响了Yandex的网络爬虫，而非任何虚假信息或政治行动。

In fact, the account antibot4navalny, which tracks state-sponsored troll farms, reports that bot traffic is steady as ever. On Monday, the same day Zelenskyy claimed that disinformation had died down, antibot4navalny reported that several Kremlin-aligned accounts posted videos falsely claiming that experts are demanding the European Union lift the ongoing sanctions on Russia. Danish analyst Valdemar Osted said interactions on MAGA and AfD accounts have actually increased since the strikes. And the charts purportedly showing a decline in bot activity appear to be AI-generated.

事实上，追踪国家支持的“水军”农场的账户antibot4navalny报告称，机器人流量依然稳定。周一，即泽连斯基声称虚假信息已经平息的同一天，antibot4navalny报告称，几个亲克里姆林宫的账户发布了视频，虚假声称专家们正在要求欧盟解除对俄罗斯的持续制裁。丹麦分析师瓦尔德马·奥斯特德（Valdemar Osted）表示，自袭击发生以来，MAGA和AfD账户上的互动实际上有所增加。而那些据称显示机器人活动减少的图表似乎是由人工智能生成的。

Ironically, claims that the drone strikes hindered Russian disinformation campaigns appears to be a form of disinformation itself, no matter what Zelenskyy says.

具有讽刺意味的是，无论泽连斯基怎么说，关于无人机袭击阻碍了俄罗斯虚假信息宣传的说法本身似乎就是一种虚假信息。