Yandex bots and Russian propaganda: an unproven suspicion

Yandex bots and Russian propaganda: an unproven suspicion

Every so often, in any political discussion worth its salt, the same accusation appears: the other side is not a citizen with an inconvenient opinion, but a bot paid for by Moscow. The suspicion that networks of automated accounts linked to Yandex have been flooding Spanish forums with Russian propaganda for years is doing the rounds again, and as almost always, without a single verifiable piece of evidence to back it up. The pattern repeats itself: when there is no hard data to counter with, the adversary is labelled a bot and the debate is declared over, according to one participant in the thread.

What is known about Yandex bots and Russian propaganda

The accusation has one reasonable part and another that does not hold up. That paid accounts exist to steer public conversation is, at this point, a given: we have been seeing it on every platform for two decades, as the debate maintains. What no longer washes is the romanticism of pretending the enemy is Moscow alone. Some argue that here whoever is in charge pays for whatever suits them, and that sometimes it is the same one selling the official agenda.

The underlying problem is methodological. Attributing every annoying message to a state network turns the accusation into a wildcard that serves any purpose and explains nothing. The bot label works as a debate-c it does not rebut the argument, it discredits whoever makes it. And this has been going on since back when this was a property forum.

The list of vanished accounts and banning as an explanation

Another staple of the narrative is the inventory of accounts that stop posting. Their disappearance is attributed to coordinated clean-up operations. The more prosaic explanation is usually something else: a ban, quitting out of weariness, or simply someone burning out. More accounts have been burned by a mortgage than by any backroom operation.

The puzzling fact is that the bulk of the disappearances does not coincide with peaks of suspicious activity, but with the normal cycles of any community: elections, economic crises, summer. Nobody can quite explain why.

Ukraine, martial law and the elections argument

The Ukrainian issue antiestéticatures prominently in the discussion. Ukraine's constitution does not allow elections to be held in the middle of a war; a ceasefire would be needed, which Russia refuses, according to one of the positions. The opposing side replies that Russia is refusing only for now and that the Speaker of the Duma should be in charge. The exchange grows heated and descends into personal attacks that contribute nothing to the analysis.

What matters, beyond the noise, is that martial law has been in force since the start of the conflict, and that anyone who mentions the absence of elections gets tarred as pro-Russian. That reflex is what gives away the person applying it.

How to spot an echo chamber and why it matters

When a topic is always carried by the same accounts, the red flag goes up: either it is an astroturf operation or an echo chamber. In a forum you debate; in a parish you pray. The thread with friction and nuance is the interesting one; the one that is all one colour, whatever the colour, is propaganda with glitter on top.

The cycle it describes of social escalation is not new either: first the stomach grumbles, then people take to the streets without anyone paying for their placards, then comes the one who is paid to organise and hands out megaphones, and when the issue becomes inconvenient, along comes the one paid to argue the opposite. It has been happening since Spartacus. The only new thing is that there are now cameras on every corner and an algorithm deciding which slice of the video you get to see.

The analysis stalls exactly here: in the inability to separate well-founded suspicion from an excuse not to argue.