Drone Strikes Didn't Take Out a Russian Bot Farm, But We Were Primed to Believe It

Drone Strikes Didn't Take Out a Russian Bot Farm, But We Were Primed to Believe It A viral rumor illustrates people's hunger to make sense of the division we see online. Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks to journalists after meeting with the German chancellor in Kyiv on October 4. Volodymyr Tarasov/Ukrinform/Zuma Get your news from a source that's not owned and controlled by oligarchs. On Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed that a Ukrainian bombing strike on Yandex's data centers, a large Russian technology company, had led to a sudden decrease in bot activity online. "When our strikes reached Yandex's data centers, it suddenly became a little easier to breathe on many social media platforms," Zelenskyy declared, speaking at the opening of the Warsaw Security Forum. There was, he added, "less hate, less division, and fewer provocations because there were fewer bots. And it's pretty clear where those bots were coming from."