For some time I’ve been warning about the influence war being fought online.⬇️⬇️ In June last year, when Iran was hit and internet connectivity there was disrupted, dozens of anonymous social media accounts championing Scottish independence suddenly went quiet. I pointed this out at the time, and despite the reporting, some people in my comments insisted I was making it up. I wasn’t. And the wider threat is something we need to take seriously. This week we’ve seen what happens when Russia gets hit. Ukraine struck three Yandex data centres and automated traffic from its network fell by around 94%. And all of a sudden, people are reporting that some MAGA, anti-Zelensky, pro-AfD and other far-right accounts have gone unusually quiet. We can’t say these things are connected — the Yandex figures measure automated web traffic, not political social media activity — but the reports raise questions worth investigating. Because we already know there is a substantial machinery of foreign interference working to manipulate political debate online. If you don’t think this is happening here, you’re being naive to the threat. It’s happening now. Whatever the Russians did or didn’t manage to achieve during the Brexit referendum, we know they’ve spent years trying to interfere in our politics and drive division online. So ask yourself: when it comes to divisive political issues, why do certain arguments dominate our feeds? Why does outrage so often suck the air out of everything else? How much is genuine political debate, how much is amplified by algorithms, and how much is being deliberately pushed by hostile states? Not every political disagreement is manufactured. Of course it isn’t. But those disagreements are being exploited online by hostile actors because a divided population is far easier to influence than a country that stands together. We need to get much more serious about foreign interference in British politics. euronews.com/2026/10/12/did-…