Twitter Bots Drown Out Anti-Kremlin Tweets 125
tsu doh nimh writes "It appears that thousands of Twitter accounts created in advance to blast automated messages are being used to drown out Tweets sent by bloggers and activists this week who are protesting the disputed presidential elections in Russia. Trend Micro first observed on Wednesday the bogus tweets flooding popular hashtags being used by Russians protesting the election and the arrests of hundreds of protesters, including prominent anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny. Today, blogger Brian Krebs posted evidence that thousands of accounts apparently auto-created in mid-2011 were being used to flood more than a dozen hashtags connected to the protests, and appear to be all following each other and one master account, presumably the botnet controller."
Re:I wonder (Score:5, Insightful)
If it's really a Botnet, then Twitter can't be inactive, or they risk botwars for all kinds of controversial topics in the future. Twitter will then very soon become a wasteland of botnet #topic wars and real humans will leave in droves since they can't get any useful info anymore and Twitter, the company, will crater.
As long as this presumable russian government botnet was not widely known, Twitter could have ignored it since the public didn't know that Twitter was gamed by special interests. Now however, they have to act or rather give the impression of acting. Acting in this case means to stop the Botnet of course, the other still existing botnets won't be affected since they've not been exposed (yet).
Re:What happened to Russia? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is very little socialist about Russia. It is basically a capitalistic authoritarian kleptocracy with a surging nationalist police state agenda.
Re:What happened to Russia? (Score:2, Insightful)
There is very little socialist about Russia. It is basically a capitalistic authoritarian kleptocracy with a surging nationalist police state agenda.
Or in other words, converging to the same asymptote as the US...
Re:What happened to Russia? (Score:5, Insightful)
My unvarnished take on it is that when the USSR dissolved, Russia went from a totalitarian socialism to a kind of weak Democratic capitalism, dominated by organized crime and "the oligarchs". Most of the "backbone" Russian institutions like the KGB and the military (in particular) were significantly weakened, and all manner of social ills began to rear their ugly head.
Putin kind of stepped in and with something of an iron fist in a velvet glove began to kind of re-invigorate the institutions of Russia. A number of oligarchs who wouldn't toe his line (whether politically, financially, or both) were essentially stripped of their wealth, imprisoned and some even killed (cf. Kordokovsky, who ran Lukoil, is still in jail and Litvenenko was poisoned with Polonium, although he was ex-KGB/FSB, not an oligarch).
Publicly, Putin sort of created a new "strong" Russian image and with high oil prices was sort of able to create an improved economic climate and tamp down the chaos of Russian civil life.
That being said, Democracy took a back seat if not being reduced to a mere performance. Lots of suppression of the press, the opposition. He moved from President to Prime Minister, appointing a puppet President (they traded jobs in the most recent and probably rigged election).
My guess is that the global economic downturn has taken the shine off of living in his dictatorship (along with the corruption and everyday difficulties).
You would think he would either guide a more democratic transition and fade away to private life, but I think he's going to hold on to power until he gets clipped. I think too much of the top end of Russian politics is run like organized crime for anyone to get on top and stay on top to just say "game over, I'm done".
Terms of Service Enforcement? (Score:3, Insightful)
Aren't situations like this when Twitter should, at the very least, temporarily suspend the obvious, automated "spam" accounts? All they need to do is quote some vague line in their "terms of service," which I haven't seen (I don't have a twitter account) but I would be surprised if it doesn't exist.
Re:What happened to Russia? (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought they were getting more progressive in the recent years? Is this not the case? It seems like it's just getting closer and closer to another dictatorship and extreme socialism.
Extreme socialism? No, that's not correct. Russia is what one would legitimately call a plutocratic oligopoly, where control of the government and economy is tightly confined to those who became extremely wealthy after the disbanding of the Soviet Union opened up economic markets. Once that happened, various well-connected individuals were able to profit immensely from the sale of natural resources (i.e., Russian oil and natural gas) to Europe, and political corruption increased in direct proportion as these individuals leveraged their wealth to gain political influence in a freshly post-Communist country. What happened, basically, was a period of unrestrained capitalism culminating in monopoly power infiltrating a weak political system and the subsequent disenfranchisement of the vast majority of Russian citizens from actual political power. That is not "extreme socialism."
Some might argue that much the same will happen, is happening, or has already happened, in the United States--just with less flagrant violence and impunity, but that is a topic for another thread.
This is why the Communist Party is seeing a revival in Russian politics. Not because the voters actually wish for a return to communism--after all, they know full well what it was like to live under that failed system--but because things have gotten so horrifically bad and obviously corrupt under Putin's effective dictatorship, that a vote for the Communists is basically like giving Putin's party the middle finger.
False equivalence lately? (Score:5, Insightful)
*Sigh* here we go again with the false equivalence squad.
If you can't see why your "hurr durr so is amerikuh" statement is a bunch of crap, let's make the following deal: I'll go stand in an anti-government protest here in the States, and you go stand in Red Square with those protesting Putin's latest power grab.
If we're lucky, you'll be able to write letters from prison telling us how it went.
Re:What happened to Russia? (Score:4, Insightful)
You're missing a bit there. "Organized crime" IS the KGB. When the KGB was disbanded, those guys no longer had jobs. Some now work for the Russian security forces, but most seem to have gone into the underworld in those chaotic post-USSR years. And let's not forget that Putin is ex-KGB. There's not much difference between the Russian mafia and the Russian government. Similar to America's corporatocracy, but more brutal.
Re:Figures. (Score:5, Insightful)
No no, comrade. In Soviet Russia, hash tags YOU!
Funny how the governments and the political chattering class put more importance on twitter than the average person does.
I can't remember the last time I even looked at twitter.
Re:False equivalence lately? (Score:5, Insightful)
What the hell does your dick-waving have to do with the fact that you are indeed comparing apples and oranges? Yes, the US isn't the shining beacon of hope, freedom and liberty it thinks it is. But it is still a very, very far cry from the autocratic and kleptocratic country that is Russia. Comparing the two and implying that the US is somehow on the same level of government mismanagement, anarchy and oligarchic abuses of power makes me think you haven't spent enough time in Russia.
Re:What happened to Russia? (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you know what Socialism is? It's not what Putin is after, and it's not the boogeyman either.
I'll give you dictatorship though. Seems some folk (particularly Americans) have some sort of mix-up between authoritarianism and socialism.
Those poor Scandinavians, living under their evil totalitarian socialist regimes... better liberate them.