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People have praised Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky for destroying Russian “bot farms” right before the US midterm elections.
Last week, Ukraine continued to take direct action against Russia’s invasion and attacks on its data centres by striking three data centres owned by Russian tech giant Yandex with drones.
Since their destruction, social media user anecdotes seem to suggest that the activity of Russian bots on platforms such as X/Twitter are down.
While it’s unclear if there has been a material decrease in bots, some have suggested influential right-wing accounts have been quiet – leading many to claim it was a genius move from Ukraine ahead of the upcoming US midterm elections.
The result has prompted some to suggest Zelensky is a “genius” for inadvertently helping to prevent foreign election interference – something the UK prime minister Andy Burnham suggested occurred during the EU referendum with Russian involvement.
Someone argued: “You don't even understand the damage Zelensky did to Republicans midterm messaging by taking out that Russian bot farm.”
One American historian said: “Well, it’s a quick take, and no doubt data will come in, but it sure looks like based on today’s evidence that a lot of pro-Trump and pro-AfD bot work depends directly on Russian data centers.”
Another wrote: “Who knew you could destroy the MAGA movement by blowing up a data center in Russia?”
“Zelensky should get the Nobel Peace Prize, if for no other reason than silencing so many f**king trolls in one fell swoop. The level of peace that has already introduced on social media…holy s**t,” one person suggested.
Someone else wrote: “Ukraine taking out Russia's bot farms weeks before the American election was fucking genius.”
One person suggested: “It’s really an A+ troll by Zelenskyy to take out half of Russia’s bot farm, weeks before the US midterm elections.”
Another mocked: “All of Elon's friends disappeared when Ukraine exploded that Russian data center.”
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