Fact check: Misleading graph about alleged Russian bot activity
Did attacks on Russian data centers reduce bot activity around Germany's AfD? A viral graph claims they did. But it contains significant inconsistencies and provides no evidence to support the claim.
A misleading graph has been circulating online, purportedly showing a decline in online activity related to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party following Ukrainian drone strikes on Yandex data centers. However, the graph is likely meaningless due to several inaccuracies, including a future data point, scaling errors, and unclear data sources and collection methods.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy suggested the attacks had reduced bot activity, but his office clarified he was referring to the atmosphere on social media, not a decline in bots. Despite the Ukrainian government's claims, there is currently no evidence linking the attacks to a decrease in Russian disinformation activities.
A Czech Member of the European Parliament shared the graph, which was viewed over four million times on X, suggesting it might demonstrate a decline in AfD-related online activity. However, the graph's underlying data is unclear, and it appears to extend to an undated future point, suggesting AI involvement cannot be ruled out. The Ukrainian government and Cloudflare data are frequently cited in claims of declining bot activity, but these claims are misinterpreted, as Cloudflare's services block non-human traffic, including web crawlers, and the Ukrainian government's infrastructure likely operates across multiple providers, not solely on Yandex data centers.
Written by urgent.news from DW News's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
