In case you missed it: this is how Trump-aligned bot network manipulates public debate around killing of Charlie Kirk:

«The network, we concluded, is made up of at least 90 TikTok accounts - some masquerading as news outlets - which have posted thousands of videos totalling more than 23 million views and 860,000 likes since January. Moldova's population is just 2.4 million.» #Moldova #elections #Russia #infops #EU

In-depth investigation from the BBC, which infiltrated a disinformation operation to interfere in the Moldovan elections. This operation is coordinated remotely by pro-Russian actors through Telegram. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

🧵 Charlie Kirk’s killing is now a focus for new narrative of the Trump-aligned bot network on X/Twitter. Clearly, not only Russia, Iran and China are manipulating the public debate on the topic. "Civil discourse is paramount; let's restore respectful dialogue without resorting to violence"

BREAKING: 🇲🇩 Moldova parliamentary elections are more important for the Russian state to interfere than these 2024-2025 elections _combined_: 🇺🇸 US, presidential 🇩🇪 Germany, parliamentary 🇵🇱 Poland, presidential ...as measured by an effort spent on a bot network. 🧵

I'd like to once again point out that if this can be deployed against the citizens of their own country, it will almost certainly be deployed against citizens of others, and may already be. And with tech openly making chummy with them, there will be even less resistance and transparency this time.

🧵 For Trump's admin, influencing its citizens with a bot network seems becoming an ordinary routine. Today's US is one of the first G7 powers that uses bots domestically outside of an election cycle—what for a long time used to be exclusive to authoritarian states. 1/

Kremlin bot network Matryoshka spreads first fake video made with Luma AI mocking Moldova’s President Maia Sandu The new Russian disinfo campaign in the run-up to the Sept. 28 parliamentary elections was flagged by @antibot4navalny.bsky.social.

Residential IP addresses is a critical tool for cybercrime. Espionage and disinformation. This report by @infrawatch.app is an amazing read. infrawatch.app/blog/dslroot... See also this incredible related story : nitter.net/Laughing_Man...

Matryoshka / OpOverload, a Russian-state bot network, has finally expanded to YouTube. This is how the same two fake videos appeared on YouTube, X and BlueSky on 08 August 2025. And yes, they are again targeting Nikol Pashinyan, impersonating The Anonymous / @youranoncentral.bsky.social.

Wow!

This network of hijacked Bluesky spam accounts with repetitive biographies has continued to expand. The growth can be monitored by watching the Bluesky firehose for changes to the biographies and display names of established accounts. bsky.app/profile/cons...

Russian bots pose as The Insider to spread disinfo about Moldova's President Maia Sandu, alleging she uses orphans to win votes The campaign, exposed by @antibot4navalny.bsky.social, targets Sandu and her party ahead of Moldova’s Sept. 28 parliamentary elections.

Meet Aaliyah, Anna, Emma, Paula, Mia, Katherine, Sophia, Isabella, and Amy, all of whom have the exact same biography.

🚨Exclusive Report: I investigated how the Taliban use fake identities and bot accounts to simulate support and exploit the digital space for their propaganda. It is now published on @correctiv.org. Special thanks to Viera Zuborova, Minou Becker and the others. correctiv.org/en/internati...

The US have just sanctioned Russian hosting provider Aeza, citing "its role in supporting cybercriminal activity targeting victims in the United States and around the world"

A very insightful op-ed helping to understand the MAGA phenomena.

Russian bots from the “Matryoshka” network target EU summit in Moldova with fake videos impersonating The Insider and other media The new wave of disinfo, timed to coincide with the July 4 summit in Chișinău, was identified by @antibot4navalny.bsky.social.

New disinfo from Kremlin-linked bot network “Matryoshka” attempts to pit Moldova’s President Maia Sandu against EU Commission VP Kaja Kallas The new social media campaign was identified and shared with The Insider by @antibot4navalny.bsky.social.

🧵 Kaja Kallas has become, indirectly, one of the targets of the Russian state disinfo machine. As a part of 2-month campaign smearing Maia Sandu, Matryoshka bot network is today inciting a conflict between Sandu and Kallas. Likely to put spokes in the wheel of the Moldova-EU summit.

Kremlin-backed Matryoshka bots attack Armenian PM Pashinyan, falsely accuse him of ignoring genocide, taking strong tranquilizers The Bot Blocker Project @antibot4navalny.bsky.social believes the smear campaign against Pashinyan is timed with his visit to Ankara.

The #DSA might be the most important internet law ever, but it's impenetrable without a law degree. That's why we've built RADAR, an open-source framework that breaks down DSA requirements into clear categories and measurable indicators. Making compliance accessible to all!

Some thoughts on perennial pitfalls in news coverage of social media manipulation that frequently result in reporting on fake accounts/bots/etc being far less accurate and informative than it ought to be... www.conspirator0.com/p/journalism...

The Gnida Project does some of the best work on Storm 1516 and Copy Cop. If you're interested in what is arguably Russia's most sophisticated info op, you have to follow them.

🧵 As pro-Kremlin disinfo network Matryoshka expanded to TikTok, it started to gain quite an engagement. This is the first such a case that we encountered. Fake video says: "Every third refugee from Ukraine intends to leave Poland after the presidential election, a poll shows" 1/4

Kremlin-backed Matryoshka bots and Prigozhin-linked site target Moldova’s Maia Sandu in major disinfo smear campaign The campaign, which spread graffiti of Sandu's "execution" and said she "facilitated human trafficking," was flagged by @antibot4navalny.bsky.social.

In case you missed it on Fri/Sat night:

🧵 Russian state-aligned disinfo bot network codenamed Matryoshka has expanded to TikTok yesterday, complementing its regular X/Twitter presence. On the same day the network has likely stopped its activity on BlueSky. 1/9

🧵 Russian state is happy to manipulate public debate following the Pavel Durov, French MFA‬ / DGSE statements on Romanian elections. These fake videos and covers impersonating 🇫🇷 state agencies and reputable media brands have been posted on May 20 by Matryoshka bot network.

Russian botnet begins sending out fake European articles defending Putin’s decision not to meet with Zelensky in Istanbul Fake editorials by major outlets and non-existent hashtags were reported by the Bot Blocker Project @antibot4navalny.bsky.social.

No, "Macron, Merz and Starmer were doing coke together on the train" is UNLIKELY a disinfo campaign STARTED by the Russian state. Kremlin-aligned Telegram channels and online media did AMPLIFY it. But the earliest viral tweets were likely first published BEFORE that, likely by authentic users. 🧵

VIGINUM publie un rapport sur les activités de Storm-1516, un mode opératoire informationnel russe susceptible d’affecter le débat public francophone et européen. Ce rapport s'appuie sur l'analyse de 77 opérations informationnelles conduites par Storm-1516 ➡️ www.sgdsn.gouv.fr/publications...

🧵 Russian state is now weaponizing The Anonymous hacker group, as a part of its 2-week+ smear campaign targeting Maia Sandu ahead of Molvodan parliamentary elections in Sept-2025. First time in over a year of our monitoring The Anonymous is impersonated by the Matryoshka disinfo network. 1/5

🔴 ❗📣 Una campaña de desinformación prorrusa difunde en redes sociales afirmaciones falsas sobre el apagón en España y Portugal, como han detectado el colectivo @antibot4navalny.bsky.social  y EFE Verifica (1/5). 🧵👇

The following 4 fake videos posted today by Russian disinfo network Matryoshka clearly demonstrates that Russian state has some interest in outcome of Moldovan elections. 1/2

New: Last year we reported on Russian IT company Aeza and its connections to a Kremlin propaganda campaign. Now several employees have been arrested for something different: Russian authorities allege they were involved in one of the world's largest online drug markets „Black Sprut“

Russia arrests CEO of tech company linked to Doppelgänger disinformation campaign therecord.media/doppelganger...

Earlier today, someone created a massive network of empty Bluesky accounts with repetitive biographies such as "Ireland based, interested in travel", "Netherlands based, interested in fashion", "Turkey based, interested in technology", and so on. Thus far, the purpose of these accounts is unclear.

Russian botnet spreads quotes by “Nikola Tesla's nephew,” who praises Elon Musk and accuses Ukrainians of burning cars Fake videos with logos of credible outlets quoting “Tesla's descendants” are spread by the Matryoshka network, @antibot4navalny.bsky.social found.

The Digital Threat Tipline lets anyone report misleading information or media content that could harm democracy in Canada. If you see false news, manipulated stories, misleading images/videos, or other suspicious content, please report it! www.cdmrn.ca/digital-thre... #CanadaElxn #elxn45 #cdnpoli

In case you missed this thread on Saturday: Here is why the latest fake video targeting France is much more than just another Matryoshka / Storm-1679 episode.

What are your bets on how pro-Kremlin propaganda machine will choose to exploit the Myanmar / Thailand earthquakes to its own benefit?

🧵 "71% of French people believe their lives would be better if Putin were president", claimed a forged @lefigaro.fr-branded video. Sounds like one of 100s of pro-Kremlin fake videos by Matryoshka that I showed for over a year? Except this case is remarkable in 2 important ways:

60% французов согласны бойкотировать американские бренды: ♦️ в оригинале @liberation.fr: "потому что французы не согласны с политикой Трампа и Маска" ♦️ в подделке от кремлеботов: "потому что эти бренды позорно возвращаются в Россию; пусть даже фр. экономика понесёт многомиллиардные убытки"

Apparently Kremlin takes it for granted that McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Tesla and Amazon are considering to return to Russia. As suggested by this fake @liberation.fr cover disseminated today by Matryoshka, a pro-Kremlin disinfo bot network.

New: Last year, someone pretending to be a CORRECTIV journalist sent an email to a UNHCR employee. Inside was a link to supposed evidence of corruption in Ukraine's military. We now know that Russian hacking group RomCom was most likely behind this attempted hack. correctiv.org/hybride-krie...

🧵 A GAN-face fake account made 154 posts on X/Twitter repeating the same idea with minor variations: "No matter how much giving weapons, ukraine loosing war and country will face decline in economy for generations." A subset of their tweets that gained some engagement: 1/2

#job « The Wall Street Journal is seeking an experienced and driven researcher with expertise in open-source investigations to join our award-winning Investigations team, focusing on contributing high impact, revelatory stories that our readers can’t find anywhere else ». wsj.jobs/new-york-ny/...

🧵 Pro-Kremlin disinfo network "Matryoshka" this Friday targeted the Reporters Without Borders (@rsf.org) with a special episode. With hijacked RSF logo, they falsely labelled several genuine videos* as fake using a fraudulent 'INFOX' watermark. 1/7