Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Lion Cassens

CyberScoop @cyberscoop.bsky.social · 15d

REST Media has garnered millions of views on social media for its content targeting Moldova’s pro-EU leadership. Researchers say it’s a Kremlin operation. via @derekbjohnson.bsky.social cyberscoop.com/researchers-...

Researchers say media outlet targeting Moldova is a Russian cutout

REST Media has garnered millions of views on social media for its content targeting Moldova’s pro-EU leadership. Researchers say it’s a Kremlin operation.

cyberscoop.com

13 19

Lion Cassens @lion-c.bsky.social · Jun 19

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

@atpgeo.bsky.social #misinformation

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

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...

nltimes.nl

1

Reposted by Lion Cassens

Ursula von der Leyen @vonderleyen.ec.europa.eu · Feb 28

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.

1.6K 15K 74K

Reposted by Lion Cassens

⚫️🐦‍⬛ 🇬🇪🇺🇦🇪🇺 @theskyisnotblue.bsky.social · Feb 28

25 430 1.2K

Reposted by Lion Cassens

Anton Gerashchenko @antongerashchenko.bsky.social · Feb 24

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". ⤵️

18 220 600

Lion Cassens @lion-c.bsky.social · Feb 1

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

1 7

Reposted by Lion Cassens

Carlo "Realism, Gedankenfetzen und Rants" Masala @carlomasala1.bsky.social · Jan 17

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

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

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...

www.rnd.de

87 720 3.2K

Reposted by Lion Cassens

Conspirador Norteño @conspirator0.bsky.social · Jan 2

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.

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

23 250 680

Reposted by Lion Cassens

(((Tendar))) @tendar.bsky.social · Dec 27

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.

35 310 1.2K

Reposted by Lion Cassens

Child of the 1960s @childofthe1960s.bsky.social · Dec 25

"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

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.

www.hollywoodreporter.com

4 7

Reposted by Lion Cassens

Conspirador Norteño @conspirator0.bsky.social · Dec 21

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...

Conspirador Norteño @conspirator0.bsky.social · Dec 6

The largest network detected by monitoring the firehose consists of (at least) 1155 accounts with 80 distinct biographies of the form "passionate about <A> in the field of "<B>". To date, none of the accounts in this network has posted.

collage of Bluesky accounts with biographies of the form "passionate about A in the field of B"

table of biographies used by the "passionate about..." spam network

11 200 430

Lion Cassens @lion-c.bsky.social · Dec 10

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

Conspirador Norteño @conspirator0.bsky.social · Dec 10

It's a great day to look at a pair of Bluesky spam networks, each of which promotes a specific spammy website. The accounts in the first network pose as individuals, and post links to luxuryhousezone(dot)com. Some of these accounts have duplicate biographies.

collage of Bluesky posts linking to luxuryhousezone dot com

collage of profiles of Bluesky spam accounts that share links to luxuryhousezone dot com

3 6 13

Lion Cassens @lion-c.bsky.social · Dec 10

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.

Lion Cassens @lion-c.bsky.social · Dec 8

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

1 2

Lion Cassens @lion-c.bsky.social · Dec 8

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.

2

Lion Cassens @lion-c.bsky.social · Dec 8

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.

1 3

Lion Cassens @lion-c.bsky.social · Dec 8

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!

Lars Wienand @larswienand.bsky.social · Dec 8

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

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“

1 1 16

Reposted by Lion Cassens

Lars Wienand @larswienand.bsky.social · Dec 8

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

3 17 110

Lion Cassens @lion-c.bsky.social · Dec 8

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.

Mario Zechner @badlogic.bsky.social · Dec 8

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.

2 2 16

Lion Cassens @lion-c.bsky.social · Dec 8

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.

1 1 10

Lion Cassens @lion-c.bsky.social · Dec 8

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.

Lion Cassens @lion-c.bsky.social · Dec 7

Bsky is being flooded with German speaking AI powered bots.
A thread on why this is important, ultimately making all social media is unusable. #deutschland #trolls #AI #election

1/ What happened? All these responses to a @zeit.de post have something in common (spoiler: they are not real):

Likely AI generated responses to a german news article.

5 27 50

Lion Cassens @lion-c.bsky.social · Dec 8

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).

1 1

Lion Cassens @lion-c.bsky.social · Dec 8

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.

1

Reposted by Lion Cassens

Mario Zechner @badlogic.bsky.social · Dec 8

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.

4 6 32

Lion Cassens @lion-c.bsky.social · Dec 7

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.

1 2