Lion Cassens

Russian disinformation network infects AI chatbots, Dutch investigation finds Leading artificial intelligence chatbots, including ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Mistral, are reportedly unintentionally spreading pro-Russian propaganda by citing fabricated claims originating fro...

State actors trying to influence Chatbot responses. Something to watch out for...

@atpgeo.bsky.social #misinformation

nltimes.nl/2025/06/19/r...

Your dignity honors the bravery of the Ukrainian people.

Be strong, be brave, be fearless.
You are never alone, dear President Zelenskyy.

We will continue working with you for a just and lasting peace.

24.02.2022: the chronicle of a day that changed the fate of the entire world

▪️ It all started with Putin's speech, in which he announced the decision to start the so-called "SMO". ⤵️

But somehow he likes China's government, or what?

Russische Einflusskampagne auf Social-Media-Plattform Bluesky Hunderte Accounts posten über mehrere Stunden Propaganda im Dauerfeuer: Am Freitagnachmittag hat eine mutmaßlich russische Einflusskampagne auf der Social-Media-Plattform Bluesky gewütet. Ein Desinfor...

Dass die Russen jetzt auch hier sind zeigt, dass die Plattform an Bedeutung gewinnt

www.rnd.de/politik/desi...

screenshots of the profiles of Bluesky accounts risefordemocracy.bsky.social, usaliberallion.bsky.social, bluewavesriders.bsky.social, democracydefenderr.bsky.social, uniteddemocracy.bsky.social, & savedemocracyorg.bsky.social

screenshots of replies from the six accounts containing error messages or claims to be "AI assistants" etc

Based on their profiles, one might at first think that these six Bluesky accounts belong to activist groups on a mission to defend democracy, or something of that sort.

In reality, they're just reply spammers responding to random posts from liberal accounts with unsolicited AI-generated replies.

The case around oil tankers Eagle-S, which is most certainly responsible for damaging the Estlink-2 undersea cable, is getting even more interesting. It appears that ship was not only involved in sabotage but in espionage, as well.

For Bluesky, Massive User Uptick Brings Growing Pains and Divisive Bots It’s not just human users who’ve been flocking to Bluesky but also bots, including those designed to create partisan division.

"For Bluesky, Massive User Uptick Brings Growing Pains and Divisive Bots. It’s not just human users who’ve been flocking to Bluesky but also bots, including those designed to create partisan division." via The Hollywood Reporter

@lion-c.bsky.social is quoted & seems to understand the bot problem

In the two weeks since this thread was posted, the "passionate about" spam network has grown to over 15 thousand accounts, and evolved a bit in other ways. Here's an updated analysis...
bsky.app/profile/cons...

Another bot network using AI for at least some of the posts...

Grundsätzlich schwer zu sagen. Zwei Möglichkeiten:

1) Die Folgen tausenden (>100,000) Accounts und gewinnen dadurch "back follower". (komisch, aber nicht verboten)

2) Bekannte Persönlichkeiten, die von X gekommen sind und daher ohne Beiträge viele follower haben.

Do you have a handle of some? Would like to take a look.

Auf jeden Fall ein Fake-Account (siehe Antwort an OP)!

Ich denke aber nicht, das der zum gleichen Netzwerk gehört - da diese Bilder von Instagram gestohlen wurden. Das Ziel kann aber natürlich das gleiche sein.

Aileen Tina Hufschmidt auf LinkedIn.

Eines der Fotos zeigt auf der Uniform den Namen "Hufschmidt". Schnelle Google Suche bestätigt deinen Verdacht: Diese "Christine Wagner" existiert nicht und hat die Bilder geklaut.

4/ Some sources said it has been up to 50 accounts, but currently I cannot find those accounts on Bluesky (perhaps already blocked?).

See for example this list: bsky.app/profile/lars...

Thanks to everyone who helped/helps shining light on this!

1. Screenshot of Subdomains of vanilasky.click https://urlscan.io/ip/23.88.96.130

2. Screenshot of Subdomains of vanilasky.click https://urlscan.io/ip/23.88.96.130

3. Screenshot of Subdomains of vanilasky.click https://urlscan.io/ip/23.88.96.130

4. Screenshot of Subdomains of vanilasky.click https://urlscan.io/ip/23.88.96.130, zusätzlicher Hinweis: „Attention: These domains and hostnames were discovered through Certificate Transparency (CT) Logs and have been irrevocably published as part of the public record. There is no mechanism for us or anyone else to remove this information from the internet“

Es sind noch ein paar mehr schon/noch hinterlegt bei vanillasky. click

3/ The 9 remaining accounts stopped posting shortly after my initial thread and have not posted since. Until then, these 9 made 182 posts: bsky.app/profile/badl...

This network was easy to find due to the common URL. However, it is likely not the only attempt to build a German speaking AI-network.

2/ This is less than it seemed, based on how the replies to these news articles were dominated by the network (now often called vanillasky network).

However, the network was likely still being developed.
The oldest account first posted 4 days ago, while approx. half started posting 2 days ago.

Yesterdays thread on the discovery of an AI bot network gained quite some traction. Since then, ppl. found out more about the network.

1/ @badlogic.bsky.social and other's found that the bots are hosted through the same domain, which now has a total of only 19 bots. 10 of which are blocked by Bsky.

Hi Robert, ich hatte selber auch nicht mit so viel Aufmerksamkeit für den post gerechnet und kann deine Verunsicherung daher verstehen.

Falls noch zweifel bestehen, gerne über meine Arbeits/Uni-E-Mail Kontakt suchen (kann via Google gefunden werden).

The accounts were less just a few hours/days old. Roughly half have been deleted by now - so it seems BlueSky is doing a good job!

They might still rely on us for reporting suspicious activities though.

And just to quantify the OPs claim that Bluesky is being flooded with German speaking bots.

This tiny network hat 19 bots, which posted a total of 182 posts (at least the 10 bots that are still active).

That's not quite a flood. Pretty sure as the elections come closer, we'll se more activity tho.

Die bots aus dem thread haben mit niemandem interagiert.

Rein technisch dürfte das aber Möglich sein. Fliegt aber ggf. schneller auf, wenn die Antworten weniger Sinn machen.

Das Hauptproblem ist, das die mit der Zeit besser werden könnten.

In other bot news, these bots are on their on "Personal Data Server", which is still running.

There are a total of 19 accounts on that server. Only 9 of them have been suspended. Curious why @support.bsky.team hasn't defederated with that PDS entirely?

Die sind alle über eine eigene Bluesky-Instanz registriert. Bluesky ist dezentral aufgebaut, so das man seinen Provider selbst auswählen kann. In diesem Fall wird das wohl genutzt um z.b. E-Mail-Verifizierungen zu umgehen. Oder andere Sicherheitsmaßnahmen.

The domain also seems fairly new. Registered on 26th November according to www.whatsmydns.net/domain-age?q....

Yes. I'm also german speaking but posted in English due to a mostly English speaking audience.

It's still deception and not clear who is behind this. They may shift to more radical messaging once enough people trust (follow) them.

/6 @zeit.de @spiegel.de @taz.de Habt ihr eine Idee, wie solche Bot-Netzwerke davon abgehalten werden können, eure Posts zu hijacken?

2/3 der replies zu euren letzten Posts sind von Bots.

(Do you have any ideas how to stop these bots from hijacking your posts)? 2/3 of replies are bots)