"Russian Bots", Burning Data-Centers, & Partitioning The Internet
Authored by Kit Knightly via OffGuardian,
The Ukrainian military used their surfeit of drones to destroy Yandex data centres in Russia, and as a result, "hostile" Russian bot activity dropped to almost zero.
That's the story.
There's no evidence it's true, of course, but since when did that make any difference?
What were these alleged bots supposedly talking about?
Well, that depends who you are.
If you're a Covid-era pro-vaccine nut job, they were talking about Fauci and ivermectin and vaccines harms.
If you're a Zionist, they were supporting about "free Palestine".
If you're a Democrat, they were spouting MAGA talking points.
If you're a leftist in general, they were promoting the AfD in Germany, Reform in the UK or just the "far right".
It turns out the bots are everyone who disagrees with you and nobody who agrees with you.
Isn't that nice?
No matter who you are, there's a source-less graph out there with a line going down which shows you were right about everything.
It's not like you can just make up a graph.
Zelensky summed the situation up thus:
"It suddenly became a little easier to breathe on many social platforms. There was less hate, less division and fewer provocations,"
We've been given taste of a Russia-less and/or bot-less and/or disinformation-less internet, isn't it lovely?
To be clear, again, there is no evidence at all this is true. They just say things.
This comes hot on the heels of Andy Burnham just saying - sorry, "confirming" - that Russia tried to influence the Brexit referendum back in 2016 (a sure indication he plans to reverse that decision, but that's another story for another time).
The point is we're all being influenced by big bad Vlad and his big bad bots.
Maybe we should do something about it, right?
You know what would help filter out hostile state-driven AI bot activity?
Digital ID. Just sayin'.
Or, perhaps we should partition or the internet...
Nobody is saying that - yet - but this is kind of story is laying the groundwork. Just wait.
As I wrote about AI and data centre fear last month:
None of this will really be about avoiding any apocalypse.
It will be about compartmentalisation. Cutting lines of communication.
Running small business or personal websites in general will become more expensive as the "data centre tax" is added to hosting providers.
Much like the "sugar tax" on fizzy drinks and snacks in the UK, this tax will notionally be paid by the hosting providers, but will be passed onto the customers via increased prices.
Major corporations will be able to easily afford these increases, but smaller independent sites will feel the pinch.
It will be cheaper to pay corporate resellers to cohost, but then you'll have to sign up to agreements about not publishing "misinformation" and, again, provide your proof of humanity.
If you run a website your data centre usage tax will be 0.04 per local visitor, but 0.10 per international visitor - since serving data further is more compute heavy.
You'll be able to get reductions in hosting costs if you use a "local only" server, accessible only to those resident in your home country/region/bloc etc.
Automatic translation, we'll be told, is very heavy on AI usage. So it will be increasingly cheaper to only publish in your native language too.
It won't matter if any of this is true or not, they'll just say it, as they do.
On social media, the more followers you have the more data you're using, so after a certain point you will have to either pay to maintain your followers, or pay per post to make sure your followers can see it.
Of course these limitations won't apply to legacy outlets like the BBC, CNN or their ilk of course. They will be exempt, because they are part of the "essential information distribution network".
And all the time, the fear of "rogue AI" will be there, to be picked up as convenient. A digital pandemic that, like Covid, can be started and stopped on a dime by the digital version of "testing protocols".
Kill switches and "digital firebreaks", allegedly installed to quarantine "rogue" AI agents, will enable swift isolation of any anti-establishment opinions or information that breaks through to an audience of any size.
An independent news YouTube channel getting a lot of views? Oh no, it's been reported to be AI and has been suspended pending investigation!
An alternate media website is getting a lot of views? Oh no, the server it's stored on has been compromised by AI and needs to be temporarily isolated!
Again, obviously not one word of this needs to be true. They will just say it. Like they just say everything now.
And the real kicker is it won't matter if global internet traffic does decrease or data centre use really declines. They probably won't even check. The real numbers don't matter.
"Russian bots" is perfect for this, mixing "AI bad" with "Russia bad" with "disinformation bad" in a neat little agenda cocktail.
Like Mary Poppins' medicine, everyone gets the flavour they want.
It's exactly the kind of ridiculous story that could be used to justify this process down the line.
We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of ZeroHedge.