Russian Telegram channels are suddenly gaining thousands of suspicious new followers. Nobody knows who’s behind the apparent bot attack.

Source: Meduza

Several independent Russian news outlets, including Meduza, have seen a sharp rise in subscribers to their Telegram channels in what appears to be a bot attack.

Important Stories says its Telegram channel has gained 10,000 subscribers in recent days and that the data shows this is not organic growth. The vast majority of the new subscribers are inactive accounts with no profile pictures and computer-generated names, the journalists said.

TV Rain, Novaya Gazeta, Ostorozhno, Novosti, and Astra have experienced similar sudden increases in subscribers over the past several days. Politician Boris Nadezhdin has also complained that his subscriber count was being artificially inflated.

Independent outlets are not the only ones reporting a massive influx of empty accounts. The Russian-language RT channel is among the propaganda outlets that have also reported the surge; it described the accounts as having no photos, stories, or signs of a real person. Host Vladimir Solovyov’s Telegram channel has also seen its subscriber count artificially inflated.

It is unclear what is behind the sudden increase. TV Rain suggested that the artificially inflated subscriber counts could serve as grounds for mass complaints against a channel, in an effort to get it blocked, and that this may be linked to the upcoming State Duma elections. Important Stories said it experienced a similar influx after publishing an investigation into underage sex trafficking. The investigation named billionaire Oleg Deripaska as one of the network’s clients.

At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.

If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at reports@meduza.io.

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Russian Telegram channels are suddenly gaining thousands of suspicious new followers. Nobody knows who’s behind the apparent bot attack.

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