Network of Scottish X accounts go dark amid Iran blackout

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/25759181.network-scottish-x-accounts-go-dark-amid-iran-blackout/

by TiredOfLife • 6 months ago

318 257 6 months ago

LadyCailin• 6 months ago

‘Jake’ claimed that a “top BBC anchor resigned on air and was immediately detained by security services” and that “crowds have surrounded the residence of the newly appointed ‘Governor General’ imposed by London”.
Meanwhile, ‘Fiona’ said that “protesters have seized Balmoral Estate” and “International markets are dumping UK assets as images of tanks in Edinburgh go viral”.
‘Lucy’ claimed that "farmers have used tractors to block the A1 at the English border”, while another account called ‘Kelly’ said that “army trucks are rolling down the Royal Mile. Soldiers in fatigues are guarding the Scottish Parliament”.

Surely the number of Scottish people influenced by accounts making such outlandish claims is exactly zero.

jaapz• 6 months ago

The question is, is their purpose to influence scottish people, or iranian people?

graemep4• 6 months ago

Not Iranians - what would anyone gain by influencing Iranians' views of Scottish nationalism? My experience has been that people outside the west barely know Scotland exists and are not going to care about it anymore than the average Scot is likely to have strong feelings about Laos.

It may be aimed at Scots but sometimes be done too blatantly so slips into the implausible. It may be aimed at influencing just those prone to conspiracy theories - who might be few but more likely to extreme actions.

philbo2• 6 months ago

It's for the Scottish. It's in Iran's interests for Scotland to become independent because that would enforce change on the United Nations Security Council. The UK ceases to exist and loses its veto, then what happens on the UNSC after that is anyone's guess.

RegW2• 6 months ago

Apparently X is entirely blocked in Iran unless using a VPN.

Perhaps they mean to influence Iranians who activity circumvent internet restrictions :-)

3rodents• 6 months ago

You only need look at Musk’s Twitter and right wing media outlets to hear about the U.K’s no go zones for white people — which do not exist. Accounts professing to be from Scottish people are not trying to influence Scottish people, they’re trying to influence Americans into believing that Scotland has already fallen victim to what the fearmongers say is coming for America.

energy123• 6 months ago

It's part of their government's "Death to England" vision, which they describe as a "policy". Splitting up the UK is part of it. It's ineffective and bizarre, but this insular theocracy has a long track-record of such decision making.

philipwhiuk• 6 months ago

Surely the number of Scottish people influenced by accounts making such outlandish claims is exactly zero.

But perhaps they influence American foreign policy.

twixfel• 6 months ago

I’m certain that a key pillar of Russian propaganda in the USA is to repeat the horseshit that Europe is some degenerate shithole/caliphate arresting people left right and centre for tweeting. See also the US’s total obsession with London and its supposed “no go zone” for white people. The irony is that the US is far less white than Europe is, so they really cannot point fingers at us. It’s worked fantastically at separating the US from all of its allies. We saw that at the Munich security conference last year.

In reality we are their closest and truest friends and yet they’re relentlessly shitting all over us, even threatening to invade now. The only comfort is that the USA will inevitably reap what it is sowing.

graemep4• 6 months ago

Surely the number of Scottish people influenced by accounts making such outlandish claims is exactly zero.

There are always some idiots who believe implausible claims. There are plenty of conspiracy theorists around who believe implausible things.

These are also the most extreme posts so there may be more plausible ones.

blitzar• 6 months ago

I see Elon and Trump quoting and citing this level of "reporting" as "facts" all the time.

gilleain2• 6 months ago

"army trucks are rolling down the Royal Mile"

Apart from anything else, where are they rolling 'down' from? The castle? I mean I know it's technically a castle, but it's not like there are a bunch of troops there just waiting to spring on Holyrood, no?

arethuza12• 6 months ago

Parts of Edinburgh Castle are still used by the army - I doubt there are many trucks or squaddies based there though:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh_Castle#Military_role

pjc509• 6 months ago

DATELINE 1PM - ARTILLERY FIRE HEARD OVER EDINBURGH

Aka, the one o'clock gun, which locals ignore entirely as it's every single day but always surprises a tourist: https://www.edinburghcastle.scot/see-and-do/highlights/one-o... . There is actually a small barracks on the site as well, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redford_Barracks ; the city as a whole contains a few more barracks for various units, including a signals unit conveniently located near the main telephone exchange.

Waterluvian3• 6 months ago

Maybe it’s not meant to be signal. It’s meant to be noise that makes the signal increasingly hard to distinguish. You get used to there being bullshit and now you can’t tell precisely which unlikely but maybe plausible messages are true. It helps weaken the ability for the target to be able to engage in meaningful discourse.

jmward01• 6 months ago

I hate to admit it but I failed the NPR real vs fake video quiz [1] and it is exactly because of this. There is so much fake noise out there that it is very hard to tell what is true.

[1] https://www.npr.org/2025/11/30/nx-s1-5610951/fake-ai-videos-...

pjc509• 6 months ago

outlandish claims

I dunno, have you seen US news recently?

arethuza12• 6 months ago

I'm just nervous about you-know-who realising that Scotland is in the Western Hemisphere!

notahacker3• 6 months ago

tbf the US is a very different place where you'd have to at least double check rumours that the executive hadn't decided that tanks in cities were the best way to address crime in cities.

The UK rumour people probably believe is more likely to be "English police suppress tweets of valued contributors to the Scottish nationalist movement"...

arethuza12• 6 months ago

Sadly, the figure isn't zero - I know a few.

H8crilA• 6 months ago

A lot of this stuff doesn't work by changing people's mind on topic X, but rather by saturating the informational environment so that people declare epistemological bankruptcy. For example, one thing that you can quite often hear from a Russian that has been confronted with something unpleasant is "well, who knows what's true". This is usually not a figure of speech, not some kind of washing down of facts, but rather an accurate representation of their mind.

Between being fooled and being uninformed the latter is much more pleasant.

red-iron-pine4• 6 months ago

but rather by saturating the informational environment so that people declare epistemological bankruptcy.

"never use big words when a smaller one will suffice"

they want to, as Bannon said, "flood the zone". or as RAND Corp calls it, "the Russian Firehose of Falsehood"

WickyNilliams2• 6 months ago

Yes, exactly by grinding people down. Making it exhausting to discern the truth, until it's not worth the energy exertion to do so.

Also perhaps it is not meant to convince Scottish people of anything, but maybe to make English people hostile to Scotland and its people etc

inanutshellus• 6 months ago

I've always heard this as "Firehose of misinformation" but Wikipedia tells me it's "falsehood".

Nonetheless... look who innovated on it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firehose_of_falsehood

cloverich• 6 months ago

I hear that sentiment from a lot of right wing friends in US fwiw. IME here it's more a coded speech and / or an escape from difficult conversations. The coded speech part steers it towards general conspiracy topics, which are often a simple way to blanket discard everything "liberal".

An actual example: "What did you think about Bill Gates climate book?" (they'd read it) -> "He was associated with Epstein, he's a creep. I don't trust anything he says". Then, "What do you think about Trumps delaying and denying of Epstein associations" -> "There's so much back and forth, who knows what to believe."

To be clear I think your take is correct, its just I think that if the space were saturated in a direction that were more convenient towards their "team", they won't have much difficulty taking a clear stance.

nitwit005• 6 months ago

It's quite possible a lot of this stuff just doesn't work, or only has an extremely slight effect. The internet is so full of nonsense, I'm not sure how much effect you can add by tossing some more on the top of the pile.

But, these sorts of bots are fairly cheap to run, and they have time on their side to try a bunch of different ideas.

dfxm12• 6 months ago

Surely the number of Scottish people influenced by accounts making such outlandish claims is exactly zero.

The accounts appear to be suspended, so it is true that Scottish people are not being influenced by these accounts.

In fact, the link in the story about tanks in Edinburgh goes nowhere. Combined with the links to suspended accounts, the article almost reads like it was written by a sock puppet...

nmeofthestate2• 6 months ago

Seems totally risible stuff. On Twitter, I've mostly seen this story shared by British nationalist accounts, presumably because they think it tarnishes the cause of Scottish independence by throwing support for it into question.

Having said that, partisan people on social media are always happy to share stuff that they agree with regardless of the source. Presumably these accounts posted less loopy stuff sometimes and got retweets.

vintermann5• 6 months ago

I think these accounts may not be as political as many people think. It has been observed that foreign bot accounts often support both positions on contentious issues.

Maybe they're just Russian cybercriminals chasing impulse likes and follows for the sake of building up their accounts' social currency? Once they've gotten enough real engagement that the algorithm thinks they're real people, they can pivot to something entirely unrelated to the political controversy they pushed. Change name, change style, suddenly the victim follows an account they don't remember but gives interesting advice on crypto investments.

Now, I do certainly believe Russian cybercriminals do work for the government now and then in return for tolerance. But it may be less mustache-twirling chaos farming and more plain old scams.

red-iron-pine4• 6 months ago

Once they've gotten enough real engagement that the algorithm thinks they're real people, they can pivot to something entirely unrelated to the political controversy they pushed. Change name, change style, suddenly the victim follows an account they don't remember but gives interesting advice on crypto investments.

bingo.

you need a trail of real-looking accounts. not just for posting, too, but also to link to, or retweet, or like, etc., in ways that get algorithms to put stuff on the top of a feed.

there may be only one actual account pushing the marketing or propaganda, but you need 5k more to upvote or share -- and those accounts can be just random AI slop or reposts of something. take the top replies of a popular post and shorten it, then post it a day or two later. or repost the most popular generic post of last month, etc.

mrguyorama2• 6 months ago

It has been observed that foreign bot accounts often support both positions on contentious issues.

Absolutely

Maybe they're just Russian cybercriminals chasing impulse likes and follows for the sake of building up their accounts' social currency?

No, you've misunderstood. Pushing both sides isn't evidence that they aren't literally posting as information warfare. The Kremlin goal is not really any party wins in particular (though they have preferences), but to weaken a country by ensuring it spends more effort on internal struggles.

Both Iran and Russia (as well as many other nations) have known information warfare arms that actively post with the intent of stirring up shit. They really don't try to legitimize those accounts because the don't actually need the con to be hidden, because nobody fucking checks, because microblogging platforms like X are full of people who have self selected to be especially credulous, especially bad at interrogating a source of information for quality, and really really bad at recognizing how many times they have fallen for outright false info.

rozab• 6 months ago

It's the firehouse technique. The films of Adam Curtis touch on this, I'd recommend HyperNormalisation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firehose_of_falsehood

John23832• 6 months ago

It's all stochastic.

The goal is to get that one lunatic to do something, that sets off the response which drains resources and makes the powers at be less nimble.

We live in a world of subtle war.

cramsession• 6 months ago

We are the target of this propaganda, and I don’t mean the Scottish independence stuff. The US and Israel are jamming the airwaves with anti-Iran propaganda to manufacture consent to attack Iran. Every day we’re being subjected to a ton of this stuff on every channel (including HN).

It’s certainly not working on me, but I fear far too many of us are just taking these stories at face value.

torben-friis• 6 months ago

Ooh, this is a great idea. There’s probably a lot that can be detected by measuring usage drop. I wish the same analysis was attempted in my country.

6LLvveMx2koXfwn3• 6 months ago

"At the time, disinformation analysis firm Cyabra claimed that as much as “26% of profiles discussing Scottish independence were fake”.

Unsurprising given there is no true Scotsman.

philipallstar3• 6 months ago

This made me stop and laugh for a minute.

DonHopkins2• 6 months ago

What we actually have here is a classic case of Yes False Scotsman.

noelwelsh4• 6 months ago

When I read wildly insane comments on a mildly contentious issue here on HN (e.g. as a very mild example, posts on electric cars always draw out someone who needs to state they drive 1000 miles a day and so electric cars will never work for anyone) I wonder how many sock puppets accounts there are here. There must be some. The radicalization of, e.g., Marc Andreessen was very useful to some group, so there is no reason they wouldn't try more of the same in this venue.

rrr_oh_man• 6 months ago

radicalization of, e.g., Marc Andreessen

Can you share more? I read his book years ago, but haven't heard/read anything since.

noelwelsh4• 6 months ago

Just search and you'll find a million articles about his "dark enlightenment" (or whatever stupid name is used) views. I think "Chatham House" was the name of a private group chat he was in that helped this process along, and there are several articles about this.

svelle• 6 months ago

It's pretty much all laid out on Wikipedia.

He initially supported the Democratic Party but because of crypto and AI he donated millions to super PACs for Trump, supported DOGE and said that children are now being readicalized to hate capitalism as well as directly messaging the Trump administration to put pressure on Universities like NSF, SU and MIT because of DEI or something like that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Andreessen#Political_view...

smashah• 6 months ago

extremely anecdotal but whenever I see a racist on Twitter, there's a non-insignificant likelihood that I click on their profile and see Marc Andreesen following them.

lucaspm98• 6 months ago

“Radicalization” to the OP likely means swinging from vaguely left-leaning to right-leaning.

fsloth• 6 months ago

He explains their pivot with Ben to GOP in this podcast episode.

The main argument was that democrats policies were detrimental to their business.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_sNclEgQZQ&t=11s

Mr. Andreessen has been involved with high level politics for a long time. This is not "random radicalization". I will not comment on the quality of the politics but it feels fairly deliberate.

alex11382• 6 months ago

I don't much like MA. I want more from our VCs than the glib one-liner-and-no-thought-beyond-that EdwardSnowdenIsATraitor. Especially if they're going to fund multiple companies

reedf12• 6 months ago

There are likely very very many - to the point that I'm pretty sure >50% of posts I read are sock puppets or agents.

Edit: At this time this is my most heavily downvoted post. I'll leave it up because I think that itself is interesting.

spiderfarmer• 6 months ago

Try saying anything negative about Musk. Instant downvotes.

noelwelsh4• 6 months ago

Indeed, this thread is very contentious. Although my top-level post has a lot of upvotes, one of my comments is bouncing up and down. Very strange to me.

Do I agree with your post? No, I think >50% is too high. Do I think you should be downvoted? No, I don't think your comment is in bad faith or inflammatory.

pjc509• 6 months ago

drive 1000 miles a day and so electric cars will never work for anyone

Whenever I see one of those I like to post Yong-heum Lee, who really did 500 miles a day in an Ioniq 5: https://www.hyundaimotorgroup.com/en/story/CONT0000000000176...

But as you say, facts are of limited use in debates any more.

magicalhippo• 6 months ago

who really did 500 miles a day in an Ioniq 5

To be clear, that's an average of about 500 miles a day, for almost 3 years.

roenxi2• 6 months ago

If there are sock puppets around here they are probably native internet crazies or maybe lazy covert software salesman. Most of the posters just represent the wide variety of opinions on a planet with 8 billion people competing with each other. There isn't much evidence of it and political propagandizing of HN through bots is pointless anyway - most readers have practically no money or power, there aren't that many of them and they aren't trying to coordinate to achieve anything politically interesting.

The radicalization of, e.g., Marc Andreessen was very useful to some group, so there is no reason they wouldn't try more of the same in this venue.

He's a billionaire. They come pre-radicalised and detached from reality by default. A body don't get to be a billionaire by just going with the flow and not having any particular interest in influencing the world around them.

pjc509• 6 months ago

This place allows throwaway accounts, although it also greentexts them so they're easy to spot, and if they get controversial they tend to get downvoted/flagged. HN basically restricts politics to a narrow drip feed of one or two stories a day, a situation which has advantages and disadvantages.

everdrive5• 6 months ago

I'd like to think HN is generally better at this than most communities, but it's hard to imagine we're immune.

It's also important to remember that (rightly or wrongly) a lot of these culture war issues are really touching a tribalism nerve rather than really touching on the issues themselves. To a lot of people, the EV debate amounts to "those _other_ people trying to force a change on _me_." Mind you, I'm not suggesting this is the right way to look at these sorts issues, but I think that's how it plays out for a lot of people. I had a real-life friend who was very anti-environmentalist, and his view was effectively that it was all made up, and was just an excuse for the left to push things on people.

ajross3• 6 months ago

I'd like to think HN is generally better at this than most communities, but it's hard to imagine we're immune.

We're much, much worse. "Most communities" are built around consensus. Show up at your Facebook group organized around your favorite hobby and you'll find that everyone has a bunch of similar opinions about most things, and that's the way most people like it. Walk off the reservation and try to pick fights over something controversial and you'll find the community walks away.

That sounds bad, right? What if consensus is wrong? Don't we need free thinkers?!

HN is an enclave of antisocial nerds[1] who think they're smarter than the rest of society. We live for disagreement. Discovering that we disagree with our peers isn't a mark of shame, it's evidence that we've discovered a Magical Great Truth, that our "peers" at HN are all sheep, and that we're therefore smarter than the herd.

Sure, Facebook fishing groups or knitting sites or whatever breed senseless group think. But on the whole "group think" usually works out pretty well and keeps people from wandering off into the scarier weeds of the thoughtscape.

HN? We breed radicals. And therefore we're more susceptible to deliberately radicalizing sockpuppetry, not less.

[1] To wit: we're basically 4chan but with an older demographic and industry cred.

lo_zamoyski• 6 months ago

Partisan tribalism is such an odd phenomenon, and it has a very obvious deranging effect on people. They no longer pay attention to principle or policy. Instead, everything becomes a matter of some vacuous “groupism”. Parties become little jingoist nations unto themselves. Our of weakness, people are unable to maintain a position rooted in honesty and truth, and instead search for some Borg cube to join in order to receive “protection”, as long as they chant the party’s mantras. Very often, it crosses over into cult of personality territory. People make idols of the party and the party leader.

The tragedy of it all is that it completely misses the point. Politics is in service of the common good of the polity. True loyalty is to that common good as an objective good. Loyalty to a party is a false loyalty, as parties are not proper objects of loyalty. They are merely convenient political instruments, not the objects of the good pursued. Things become doubly absurd when this party loyalty remains intact despite a party’s errors.

it was all made up, and was just an excuse for the left to push things on people

The fact is that environmental issues - like almost any political issue - can be used by any party to push an agenda in parallel to the actual issue. So, here, environmental concerns can be used by any party as a cudgel and an instrument, whether negatively (e.g., painting all environmental concern as subterfuge in order to push through policies aimed at private profit at the expense of quality of life) or positively (e.g., stopping critical projects proposed by a political opponent by commissioning bogus ecological studies to create impediments).

Of course, that’s different than the extreme position that all environmental concern is part of some conspiracy (the Left has its own share of analogous conspiratorial crackpottery).

terminalbraid• 6 months ago

I'd like to think HN is generally better at this than most communities, but it's hard to imagine we're immune.

This is a zero-barrier-to-entry forum (not even an email required!) that has the eyes of a people prone to being involved with startups. Why would you think in any way this would be better than an average equivalent? Because you don't personally notice it?

Bender• 6 months ago

Any site that becomes sufficiently popular will attract sock puppets, shills, paid agitators, paid astroturfers, spammers, scammers, people paid to warm up accounts and to vouch for their alternate accounts, accounts pretending to ask questions with alternate accounts that suggest a solution that they own and operate and many many other shenanigans. There are also no shortages of people that try to influence the thinking of others or trick them into buying something or voting a particular way. Some of them get nullified in /newest by some of us. Some make it through. Some even get massive responses and that is is a chance they are rolling the dice on.

okr• 6 months ago

Are you? Reveal yourself!

noelwelsh4• 6 months ago

I've been outed! I am but the humble servant of my cat!

Amezarak• 6 months ago

Whether or not this is true, it's also true that a very popular way to dismiss someone and their beliefs is to insist they're one of these accounts. Happens to me all the time.

exceptione2• 6 months ago

Unfortunately, yes there are. This is a interesting demography. But I think there are also cases of genuine stubborn blindness. For example, discussion topics that are critical of political state of things like ICE and the marriage of tech and fascism often get actively flagged.

For some, reality can't fit in their belief systems, and they have to suppress any challenging information. "Everything is fine/Don't make me think". For others, it is highly inconvenient, because they have a stake in it. I think for something like the YCombinator audience in general it is a hard subject, as the business model seeks to pick out the winners to take it all. The monopolist playbook is so deeply ingrained and normalized, that it cannot face the higher order effects of this modus operandi.

So bots and sockpuppets yes, but I think some of the stupid flagging, the obvious poor argumentation and general context blindness also can be explained as people being unable to adjust their belief systems.

pndy• 6 months ago

Looking at various discussions, I'd say there's enough to attempt to steer narrations. In some cases users bury comments from such accounts rightfully with downvotes. But it's not just discussions - there are accounts submitting nothing but single-themed content to spread particular themes.

My account isn't that much old but I was lurking around for years and I can say that quality of content and comments has significantly dropped in last 5 years. I'd guess it's because people running away from reddit settled here, because HN serves more generic stuff - with help of notorious spammers who surely get paid for uploading content from big media outlets every few hours.

tomhow• 6 months ago

When you do the job we do, and spend hours each day looking at the discussions and the data, it becomes fairly easy to spot inauthentic actors on HN. It stands out when newly registered accounts (which appear in green) or older accounts without much posting history, suddenly start posting comments in support of a particular position.

This is another reason why HN's primary purpose – gratifying intellectual curiosity – is so important. Curious conversation is hard to fake. You can't really be inauthentically curious, at least not for long. So the more we can succeed at nudging the community's conduct towards curious conversation, the more it stands out when accounts are acting to promote a particular agenda, and the faster we can weed them out.

keybored3• 6 months ago

The account, which describes itself as “a proud Scottish lass” and “passionate about Scotland's independence & our right to self-determination”, is based in Europe (according to X’s location data).

I get suspect everytime an online socialist overuses famous socialist terms (or supposed socialist terms) before segueing into a conjunction. “Of course I want the socialist utopia just as much as all of us, comrades, but...”

philipallstar3• 6 months ago

And the way we all collectively get to utopia is by forcing more money out of people to spend on me talking at fancy dinners

graemep4• 6 months ago

Its hardly surprising as we already know there are people who (for both commercial and political motives) have very fake social media accounts.

This guy claims to have made $300k posting racist content posing as British: https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2025-11-16/kin...

This is why my FB feed is full of misinformation, strawman arguments, sweeping conclusions and no nuance. it does not matter what they are arguing about of which side they are on, the stupidity is constant. Left and right, theists and atheists, pro and anti-immigration. Anything else you can think of. All things I am happy to have an interesting argument about, but what social media offers is engagement bait of one kind or another - from rage bait to feigned ignorance.

alex11382• 6 months ago

I'm sure regulation would be more complex than "Feeds must be chronological and only what you're explicitly following" - hammer out the details - but yeah, basically, that

It doesn't help matters when the initial founding was less than innocent https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1692122

Earw0rm• 6 months ago

Networks were full of this stuff before the bot armies were a glimmer in whoever's eye.

I don't doubt bots are a factor in the sheer volume of it, but human nature on network debates was bad when it was only fairly smart, educated people, and it only got worse as the AOL-to-Facebook pipeline demographic became politicised.

Glinner isn't a bot, just to pick one example of somebody who - irrespective of the merit or not of his argument - simply behaves like an asshole, constantly.

c0n5pir4cy• 6 months ago

Important thing to note - UKDefenceJournal only tracks a set of known Iran linked related accounts that could be tracked because of previous Internet blackouts in Iran.

It would be interesting to see how this applies more widely to other sets of content and countries.

From the original UKDJ article:

The original UK Defence Journal investigation stressed in an editor’s note that “this article does not claim that Scottish independence is a foreign plot, nor does it suggest that support for independence is illegitimate, inauthentic, or driven by anything other than sincere political conviction.”
The focus, we underlined, was not on genuine activists but on documented attempts by Iranian-linked actors to exploit authentic political debates for their own strategic purposes. Robertson’s reply arguably missed this distinction. The concern raised by analysts was not that independence itself is tainted, but that foreign actors are infiltrating the conversation, seeking to magnify division and undermine trust in democratic processes.

RobertoG• 6 months ago

One man information is another one bot.

The Herald information comes from ukdefencejournal. They don't tell us exactly where the information comes from originally, despise talking about the company Cyabra later in another context.

But the Jewish Telegraphic Agency tell us that the information about Iran also comes from Cyabra (1)

Cyabra? The Tel-Aviv based company, with important customers as the USA State Department, informing us about Iran?

What could possible go wrong?

(1) - https://www.jta.org/2025/07/14/global/when-irans-internet-we...).

kelipso• 6 months ago

Lol, I just about guessed this was what was going on. Anti-Iran influence operations are on an absolute tear right now.

wiseowise• 6 months ago

60% of the internet will disappear if the same would happen in Russia.

4ggr0• 6 months ago

US would probably have a large impact as well, of course because lots of internet-users are from the US, but also because the US likes to astroturf as well.

tiny example: https://web.archive.org/web/20160406094911/http://www.reddit..., Most addicted city (over 100k visits total) Eglin Air Force Base, FL

let's not lose ourselves in cold-war propaganda too much and act like russians and chinese are the only ones astroturfing online.

keybored3• 6 months ago

Russia is a waning superpower with a low GDP but a powerful enough internal economy to wage a conventional invasion of a large European country. The US is a much richer country, the leading superpower, and an IT powerhouse. But for some reason the first thing that pops into people’s mind when they hear propaganda bots is “Russia”.

(I would buy China, too. A huge country with a powerful economy.)

That in itself looks like a programmed response.

Of course Russia uses bots and propaganda. But the focus on Russia seems completely out of proportion.

sofixa3• 6 months ago

During the Prigozhin uprising / coup attempt, internet was cut off in parts of Russia, and there was a noticeable slowdown in comments on multiple popular subreddits. I don't know if any studies have been done to evaluate this empirically though

ErroneousBosh5• 6 months ago

I can confirm that when I blocked a huge swathe of mobile broadband providers in Russia and Israel, something like 95% of the spam on the forum I run stopped instantly.

It seemed like a messy and obvious approach - sign up with a clearly bot-generated gmail account, hit the activation link sent by email an average of 100ms, and immediately post in every thread something along the lines of "WHEN WE'VE FINISHED IN KHARKIV / GAZA WE'LL BRING THE GAS CHAMBERS TO ENGLAND", all in under about ten seconds.

I don't think it's Russians or Israelis behind it, necessarily, but that's where the annoying noise has been coming from.

jbms3• 6 months ago

Not a new thing.

"a 2024 study by researchers at Clemson University has estimated that 4% of content relating to independence were linked to one Iranian-backed bot network of around 80 accounts."

Speaking as a Scot, I would expect there are those who support attempts to break up the UK who care zero about Scotland. Who's ultimately behind it is speculative.

ricardo817• 6 months ago

Makes sense. Russia and friends would seem to have an interest in Scottish independence as it undermines the UK.

It seems to me most social platforms (not just big tech, smaller UGC sections like the BBC) have many puppet accounts that are triggered by certain content.

Anecdotally looking at BBC comment sections of Scottish content, the "highest rated" comments are almost unilaterally pro-British/anti Scottish National Party which deviates a long way from historical voting preferences. The SNP have performed very well in Scottish and Westminster elections and the weakest barometer for them is/was the 45%/55% vote split in the Scottish independence referendum 12 years ago. I think if anyone took a "sentiment score" of what's there vs how people generally think or behave there'd be a large deviance.

More generally, any platform seems to have systemised abuse and this pattern goes all the way back to generic content management systems being abused in the early 2000s.

I do wonder, are these accounts being accessed via proxy? i.e. someone claiming to be from the UK and having a residential IP- if the platform doesn't care about the location of access, maybe start checking for latency?

jbms3• 6 months ago

The SNP have won a lot of seats through the voting system because the other parties split the non-independence vote. The SNP have never had a majority of votes, even with an overwhelming majority of parliamentary seats.

ricardo817• 6 months ago

which voting system? There's one for Holyrood and one for Westminster.

IIRC it's been a long time since anyone has commanded a >50% of the vote share.

pjc509• 6 months ago

It has been quite a long time since a Westminster party has won with a vote share of over 50%, and the SNP vote share at Holyrood is higher than those of parties that win Westminster elections. The Westminster electoral system (nb to non-Brits: all the UK constituent bodies run different voting systems for no good reason) delivers majorities at the cost of legitimacy.

neoromantique4• 6 months ago

Makes sense. Russia and friends would seem to have an interest in Scottish independence as it undermines the UK.

Do they? Since Independent Scotland is very likely to rejoin EU it seems to me Russia & co would be interested in keeping it on the sinking ship that is post-brexit UK(economy wise).

mrec2• 6 months ago

I don't think that's a given, or even necessarily a strong likelihood. A majority of Scotland's trade is with the rest of the UK, unlike the Brexit situation where a shrinking minority of the UK's trade was with the rest of the EU, the only EU member for which this was the case. Scotland is accustomed to deficit spending and to large subsidies from the rUK, neither of which would be epecially palatable to EU finances.

And while I certainly think it's fair to describe the UK economy as a sinking ship, I also think that blaming that on Brexit is, to put it politely, "starting with your conclusion". UK growth has been higher than France, Germany or Italy since 2016. Brexit has obviously had impacts, but they haven't all been negative (the City in particular has zero enthusiasm to fall back into any EU alignment) and I think the COVID lockdown shambles and the Homerically inept current government have been bigger factors.

I found this a decent recent overview on the common analytical takes, if you're interested: https://julianhjessop.substack.com/p/what-the-nber-gets-wron...

mcintyre1994• 6 months ago

I think it'd make the remainder of the UK weaker and more divided if Scotland joined the EU after leaving the UK, so I'd think that serves their interests too.

SPICLK22• 6 months ago

The EU has not yet set a precedent for allowing breakaway states into full membership, so it's far from a given that an independent Scotland would be able to rejoin the EU.

Scotland is of enormous strategic importance due to its location relative to Russia's naval ports. An independent Scotland with no other backing would have minimal resources to monitor and deter Russian naval activity.

sofixa3• 6 months ago

Since Independent Scotland is very likely to rejoin EU

That is in no way clear because Spain has previously (during the Scottish independence referendum) indicated they would veto such a thing (because they don't want to give Catalonia any ideas or hopes).

But in any case, a Scottish independence would force the UK to find, and invest a lot in, a new base for its nuclear submarines. Scotland is also the most important UK part of GIUK gap, where there is a lot of infrastructure to catch and track Russian assets entering the North Atlantic. UK losing access to that is not good for it nor for the US with their special relationship.

A Scotland in the EU can also create tensions between the UK and the EU, which would also be good for Russia.

gghhzzgghhzz2• 6 months ago

An independent Scotland or Wales would have pretty much the same trading relationship with the EU, as England has.

At least for several decades after independence

The level of integration of everything, including trade and supply chains and finance etc, is so big as to be almost total.

In addition, I'm pretty sure that EU would not welcome another hard border with England, it's already waisted far too much time and effort on the issue in Ireland. I'm sure it doesn't want to have to go through that again.

iso1631• 6 months ago

Assuming everyone on a BBC comment section is from the UK, that's 90% not Scottish and 10% Scottish

In 2024 the SNP got 30% of the vote, the big unionist parties having more than 2 votes for every 1 nationalist.

HPsquared5• 6 months ago

A survey of online posts is usually not representative of a population at large, either within the online community or the society as a whole. There are so many biasing and selection effects at work, even before talking about anything deliberate which is probably also going on.

breppp• 6 months ago

Usually over-representative of the unemployed, angry, lonely and obsessed

GJim2• 6 months ago

Russia and friends would seem to have an interest in Scottish independence as it undermines the UK.

Famously, Alex Salmond (at the time, the leader of the Scottish National Party) was given a regular programme on Russia Today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Alex_Salmond_Show

Say what you want about Scottish independence (its for the Scots to decide), but a break up of the UK would serve Kremlin interests no end.

arethuza12• 6 months ago

I actually think that the process around Scottish independence actually demonstrates that the UK is actually relatively sane - a part of the country wanted to consider independence, the government at the time said "OK you can have a referendum", the referendum was held and Scotland voted to stay in the UK.

I was, and still am, a support of Scottish independence but I how the whole thing was handled reflects pretty well on the UK as a whole.

timeon• 6 months ago

but a break up of the UK would serve Kremlin interests no end.

Like Brexit did.

rayiner3• 6 months ago

Russia and friends would seem to have an interest in Scottish independence as it undermines the UK.

But so do Scottish people.

master-lincoln• 6 months ago

Obviously, but how is that relevant in the context here with the Iran internet blackout?

6LLvveMx2koXfwn3• 6 months ago

Presumably only some Scottish people have an interest in undermining the UK? Latest (2024) results from YouGov suggest yes/no is 34/49 to the question 'Should Scotland be an independent country?' [1]

1. https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/Internal_Ind...

jpfromlondon• 6 months ago

Moreso when Russia and friends are putting their finger on the scale.

After all it certainly doesn't make economic sense.

everdrive5• 6 months ago

Yes, a foreign adversary can only really leverage existing stressors. Iran could not really radicalize for an issue which the country was either totally unified on, or else is totally apathetic about.

ricardo817• 6 months ago

My perspective, is Russia only sees other countries on how they can militarily respond to Russia's intentions.

For Scottish independence- well Adam Smith, David Hume et al set up the modern world. There's a definite Scottish identity. For others in Scotland it's a UK identity and they still identify as Scottish.

jameshart• 6 months ago

Presumably BBC comments also contain comments from English people who might not follow the same 45/55 split on Scottish indeoendence as Scottish people do?

gghhzzgghhzz2• 6 months ago

The problem with this argument is that it is very simplistic.

And a very simple way of de-legitimising any anti-establishment position, and protecting the status quo.

We can look at independence movements in Europe, Brexit, Trump, republicanism in the UK, any sort of heterodox economic or foreign policy.

Even if you disagree with these positions, it is helpful to you to steelman your position and your arguments. And just dismissing them as Putin's work drops you into a trap. It's arguably one reason why Trump got re-elected. People spent his entire first term assuming he'd be exposed in some complicated Russian plot and put in jail; rather than thinking hard about why he got elected in the first place. Same thing happened to some degree with the Brexit vote.

ErroneousBosh5• 6 months ago

Makes sense. Russia and friends would seem to have an interest in Scottish independence as it undermines the UK.

They also strongly support Unionism, because it also undermines the UK.

api2• 6 months ago

I really wish Reddit would turn on a feature to show where the account came from. Of course the troll farms would just use VPNs.

Man if Russia went dark like half of all politics X and Reddit would probably go dark. I bet it would be both ends of the horseshoe.

myrmidon• 6 months ago

What pockets of reddit do you suspect of being heavily Russia-influenced?

My experience of reddit is that it is wildly anti-Russian since the invasion, sometimes to an almost cartoonish degree (e.g. r/worldnews).

api2• 6 months ago

Probably the explicitly anti west left and the racist, fascist, and trad right. The groups you’d want to push to destabilize the West.

wewxjfq• 6 months ago

I think Russia did, successfully for quite some time, attempt to direct anger towards the countries supporting Ukraine. Russia would drop a bomb on Ukraine and 90% of the comment section would hate the West for it. The goal was to fuel defeatism and infighting. The latter they encouraged from the start. Reading Reddit, you would have thought Germany had attacked Ukraine from the western flank. In the days and weeks before every major pending Ukraine decision in the US, you could see a noticeable uptick of Russian-friendly talking points. Before the US election, a suspicious amount of Redditors claimed that Trump would give Ukraine more weapons than Biden. These days, they are encouraging the Europe is weak rhetoric. If a toy drone gets spotted somewhere, the only acceptable response is nuking Moscow and EU should disband if they don't dare - that inane take to me is also trolling.

RegW2• 6 months ago

10+ years ago I had a job which involved developing/testing geo-restricted software in another country. Eventually each VPN exit point would get marked up as such, and I would have to switch to another.

So if posts were marked with the country of origin or VPN, that might be enough for most people to evaluate the intent of the post.

Of course things have changed. There might not be so many IPv4 addresses around to trade, but IPv6 has probably changed that. And it's probably hard to know how long an address was used by a VPN before being traded back to a telco.

phba• 6 months ago

There is no incentive to implement such a feature. Bots and paid social media workers drive engagement. Also social media sites are designed to avoid any triggers that make users click away (like showing origin flags that would allow a user to easily dismiss a thread as fake). This is the same reason why Youtube removed dislike counts.

password54321• 6 months ago

I sometimes wonder how much your own beliefs change consuming some content online even if you consciously disagree with it. Like a slight subconscious erosion that you don't even realise is happening until you have been radicalised. Ironically I think people who are more honest or empathetic might be more susceptible to this as they try and take in other people's view points without crudely dismissing it.

lowdownbutter• 6 months ago

Yes, that's what social media is - a battle ground for nudging opinions.

Timon3• 6 months ago

This is 100% a real factor in shaping opinions. Every piece of information we encounter affects us - that's how we're built & how we can learn. But this also makes us easy to influence by consistently repeating lies, like we've seen with the "Flood the zone" technique, as well as basically the whole rise of the right over the last decade. It's all lies and misinformation, but it works because of how we're built & because there are not enough counter operations.

SuperNinKenDo• 6 months ago

How many? 3?

deanc4• 6 months ago

It goes without saying that social media is causing irreparable harm to the fabric of our society.

To use an analogy: if the village idiot went to the town square and shouted hate speech, he'd be laughed at or dealt with. Now anyone has a platform to go to the town square, except it's the world, and shout hate speech. And unlike before there will be hateful people, some of them unrecognisable from real people, who will support the village idiot. They will help amplify his voice and validate him and legitimise him.

We have to find a way to stop this. The only thing I can think of is require you to attach your real identity to social media accounts, and regulate the living daylights out of it to hold the networks accountable if their owners don't want to do the right thing. Free speech isn't free.

willvarfar• 6 months ago

I agree that social media is a net negative, but want to also point out that before social media it was the mainstream press and TV have been shaping society for decades. Things like buying a used car from Nixon or fighting in Vietnam etc are all mainstream press impact.

deanc4• 6 months ago

I like to think that contrary to this modern idea of media bias that the “mainstream” media as you label it has been a net benefit to society. Journalists used to challenge authority in democracies and bring out truth. It’s a lot more difficult now due to social media polluting the information space.

jbreckmckye• 6 months ago

The thing is, the internet was supposed to democratise, but it's ended up centralising (and therefore distorting) discourse

A good example is publishing: until relatively recently, books were how most knowledge was distributed, and publishers were able to gatekeep it

Back in the 1990s, one of the promises of the internet, was that it could break this stranglehold. The argument was that instead of 10-ish major publishers, we could have ten billion

What we've ended up with is 5 or so major platforms. Their algorithms now distort, not only the distribution of information, but the production of knowledge itself (click chasing)

An argument I'm sympathetic to, is that the internet hasn't just been a neutral medium, but has actually accelerated this centralisation

The other aspect is the shrinking role of non commercial institutions, like public sector broadcasters, universities, scientific orgs. These entities had their own biases and groupthink. But they added diversity to the media landscape and helped set useful norms

afpx• 6 months ago

I just want to be able to talk and not be suppressed as hate speech for being critical of Israel.

keybored3• 6 months ago

To use an analogy: if the village idiot went to the town square and shouted hate speech, he'd be laughed at or dealt with. Now anyone has a platform to go to the town square, except it's the world, and shout hate speech. And unlike before there will be hateful people, some of them unrecognisable from real people, who will support the village idiot. They will help amplify his voice and validate him and legitimise him.

As usual the problem is the commoner idiot, not the group of sociopaths that now have the means to astroturf their agendas efficiently.

Especially puzzling since this submission is about exactly the latter.

We have to find a way to stop this. The only thing I can think of is require you to attach your real identity to social media accounts, and regulate the living daylights out of it to hold the networks accountable if their owners don't want to do the right thing. Free speech isn't free.

Think harder then.

The village idiot could move and reinvent himself as a respectable fellow. Basically, pre-digital we naturally had different personas; there was no Panopticon that could ever hope to know all our associations. Digital tools have changed that. And inventing the fiction of “one single persona” to tie back to what you said five years ago, ten years ago, thirty years ago, is a terrible idea, and I would argue (based on intuition) very unnatural.

drob518• 6 months ago

On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog. Or a bot. Or an Iranian disinformation agent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet%2C_nobody_know...

aebtebeten• 6 months ago

Decades before the internet, in 1948, Linebarger's textbook on Psychological Warfare notes, in its section on propaganda analysis, that:

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/48612/48612-h/48612-h.htm#:~...

The [STASM] formula works best in the treatment of monitored materials of which the source is known. First point to note is the character of the source. There are several choices on this: the true source (who really got it out?) and the ostensible source (whose name is signed to it?); also, the first-use source (who used it the first time?) and the second-use source (who claims merely to be using it as a quotation?). Take the statement: "Harry said to me, he said, 'I never told anybody that Al's wife was a retired strip-teaser.' Mind you, I don't pretend to believe Harry, but that's what he said, all right." What are the possible true sources for the statement of fact or libel concerning Al's unnamed wife? What are the alternatives on ostensible sources? First use? Second use? The common sense needed to analyze this statement is of the same order as the process involved in analyzing the statement: "Reliable sources in Paris state that the visit of the American labor delegation has produced sensational repercussions in Moscow, and that Moscow, upon the basis of the American attitude, is determined to press for unification of the entire German labor movement."
It is soon evident that the mere attribution of source is a job of high magnitude.

I'm not sure what we were using 2 watts worth of cerebellum for before sophisticated language, but afterwards source attribution sounds like it'd sure soak up the cycles...

(he also has technical terms for what we now call a "sock puppet")

nmeofthestate2• 6 months ago

"‘Lucy’ claimed that "farmers have used tractors to block the A1 at the English border”, while another account called ‘Kelly’ said that “army trucks are rolling down the Royal Mile. Soldiers in fatigues are guarding the Scottish Parliament”."

Very convincing stuff. We must fast-track the shutdown of X in the UK to stop this ultra-persuasive disinfo from brainwashing our citizens.

113• 6 months ago

It's about half a dozen accounts, it could just be the very strange hobby of a single person in Iran. I don't know why all the other comments are acting like this is evidence of a huge misinformation campaign by Russia.

NoGravitas2• 6 months ago

Because the story itself is part of a propaganda operation, intended to manufacture support for US/Israeli attacks on Iran. And it's working.

ericmay2• 6 months ago

As someone who doesn’t use these products (FB, TikTok, Twitter, &c) I think it’s very clearly time to require proof of citizenship and formal ID verification to at least post content.

I’m not suggesting all of the Internet needs to go that way, but for large social media platforms I don’t see why not. You can argue that journalists need anonymity but I’m confident we can find a workaround or solution there.

I understand there’s this hacker spirit of doing things anonymous and I get it, and agree with it, but these platforms are the most mainstream things imaginable and they are way past the point of having gotten out of control.

You can’t have MAGA/Hamas/Iran/Antifa/Russia/Cuba/China/India/Pakistan all participating in shaping public opinion and sowing disinformation without contest. I’m surprised that western countries have been somewhat resilient to all of this BS by and large (nothing is collapsing, just degrading), but for how long?

ricochet11• 6 months ago

Maybe they can work out some ZKproofs of ID thing and it becomes more palatable. I know there’s people in the crypto world trying to solve problems like that. At the moment kyc results in private data later being stolen or sold - and buying stolen ids to register is too easy. But maybe oneday we can prove who we are (or prove unique human) without needing to trust the authority of the site owner at the same time

ericmay2• 6 months ago

I think that's a good idea for the verification mechanism so we don't expose data unnecessary. But I think it should have to be your literal name, city of residence, place of employment, &c *. on your posts. No hiding. People should know who they're talking to or who they're dealing with. There's some interesting discussion to be had about people who have something to lose moderating their opinion, a group of people who don't care about their reputation attacking people online and offline, &c. but those items can be worked and talked though I think.

Alternatively, if you don't want to do that just don't use the platforms. As someone who doesn't, it sucks that I have to sit here and watch people get radicalized or become confused about reality and then go and affect my daily life with their lunacy. It's annoying.

* I'm open-minded on the details, just using these as examples or discussion items.

consumer451• 6 months ago

Is that not what this is? This is out of my wheelhouse, so genuine question.

https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/safety-secu...

simianwords• 6 months ago

Lots of reasons to be skeptical about this article

- I can’t find any of the accounts

- geolocation feature is hard to crack so they must have been identified as Iranian when this feature was released

- these don’t seem to be high profile accounts

tencentshill• 6 months ago

Good job being skeptical, it's a good first instinct to have with any media. However, reading the actual article is a good choice as well.

- They link to several of the accounts (now suspended) in the article. - The geolocation was easily spoofed with a VPN, as stated in the article. - They never claim these account have any significant standing, only that they have "thousands of followers", likely in aggregate.

The news here is that they were previously known to be Iranian-linked. This blackout is further evidence, because they all stopped posting when Iran went offline.

LightBug1• 6 months ago

Ahh, quality content on X confirmed once again.

I heard on the grapevine that X is consistently number 1 on the app stores for News content ...

X ... the home of Truth ... and where the team would get rid of bots and bot networks once and for all !!!

Elon ... you're a fucking genius ...

CrzyLngPwd• 6 months ago

I wonder, when the USA closes down the internet, how many Iranian X accounts will go dark.

scoofy• 6 months ago

I think folks attempting to build a unicorn could just do what nextdoor did -- require a modicum of proof of life -- but for clones of twitter, reddit, etc.

The idea that I might get in a fight with a robot or some state agent on -- gasp -- Hacker News... it makes me want to pull my hair out. I would happily receive a postcard with code once every few years to quasi-prove my location.

TheAlchemist• 6 months ago

Not surprising at all. Wasn't most of pro-Trump content during 2016 election campaign actually generated by some kids in Macedonia who figured out how lucrative fake and sensationalized news can be ?

Social media is increasingly the poison of the society.

aussieguy1234• 6 months ago

I guess one side effect of shutting down the internet is the government troll accounts can no longer post.

terramauthe• 6 months ago

Wait until people find out this is true of separatist movements in every country.

Network of Scottish X accounts go dark amid Iran blackout

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