by Emmitt Barry, Worthy News Washington D.C. Bureau Chief
(Worthy News) – A dramatic decline in “Free Palestine” and other inflammatory social media content following Ukrainian strikes on Russian data centers is fueling widespread speculation that Moscow may have been operating a massive online influence campaign.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky added fuel to the debate after saying social media became noticeably calmer following strikes against data centers operated by Russian technology giant Yandex.
“When our strikes reached Yandex’s data centers, it suddenly became a little easier to breathe on many social media platforms,” Zelensky said, pointing to what he described as less hatred, division, provocation and bot activity.
Ukraine struck three major Yandex data centers between Oct. 8 and 11, including facilities in Sasovo, Kaluga and Russia’s Vladimir region. Reuters reported that the attacks disrupted Yandex operations, with the Sasovo facility housing two of the company’s three AI supercomputers.
At roughly the same time, X users began circulating analytics showing posts containing “Free Palestine” falling from about 70,000 per day to roughly 30,000, while use of “genocide” dropped from a peak of around 280,000 posts on Oct. 7 to approximately 150,000 several days later. Israel Hayom reported similar figures as speculation spread that Russian bot networks had been amplifying anti-Israel messaging.
Many commentators online have since suggested the data-center attacks may have inadvertently exposed a far broader Russian psychological and information operation targeting Western audiences.
Among the claims circulating online are reports that after the Russian data centers went offline:
– Tucker Carlson’s online views reportedly fell 71%.
– Retired Col. Douglas Macgregor’s views reportedly dropped 62%.
– Tucker Carlson Network, or TCN, reportedly saw views decline 34%.
Those specific percentages have circulated widely on social media but have not yet been independently verified, and there is currently no evidence proving that Russian servers were generating or artificially boosting those audiences.
The same caution applies to the “Free Palestine” data. Analysts noted that some viral graphs included partial-day figures and followed the Oct. 7 anniversary, when Israel-related posting naturally surged. The analytics therefore show correlation, not proof of causation.
Nevertheless, Zelensky himself argued that the sudden decline in apparent bot activity was revealing, saying it was “pretty clear” where many of the accounts had been coming from.
The episode is now raising a much larger question: How much of the political anger, anti-Israel agitation and division appearing organically on Western social media may actually be artificially amplified by hostile foreign actors?
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