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189

UK government says anyone working in Britain for the Russian state will have to register and declare what they are doing or face jail (www.gov.uk)

submitted 2 days ago by Hotznplotzn to c/unitedkingdom@feddit.uk

32 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Russia is to be put on the enhanced tier of the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme (FIRS), meaning anyone working for the Russian state in the UK will need to declare what they are doing or risk jail, the government announced [...]

Introduced under the National Security Act 2023, FIRS is a tool to help protect our democracy, economy and society from covert, deceptive or otherwise harmful activities against UK interests. The enhanced tier has been specifically designed to shed light on activities directed by particular foreign powers which pose a threat to the safety or interests of the UK.

Russia is the second country to be placed on the enhanced tier, following the announcement in March that Iran would be specified. The government will designate all parts of the Russian state – including its president, its parliament, all Russian ministries and their agencies, and the Russian intelligence services.

The specification of the Russian state is in response to the significant and persistent threat Russia poses to the UK and our interests, which has only increased in recent years. Russian hostile acts on UK soil have ranged from the use of a deadly nerve agent in Salisbury, malign cyber incidents - which included targeting UK parliamentarians through spear-phishing campaigns - as well as espionage and arson.

[...]

Meanwhile, Russia continues to wage its unprovoked and illegal war against Ukraine, a war which Russia could end by tomorrow by withdrawing its forces. The UK remains committed to a just and lasting peace in Ukraine and will continue to exert maximum economic pressure to stop Russia from threatening and undermining Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence, and to help ensure Russia pays for the damage it has caused.

[...]

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[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 1 points 2 days ago (7 children)

80% of the votes on this comment as of this writing came from Hexbear users. The chance that the situation arose by random chance, that the random walk of users running across this comment and having feelings about it happened to land on 4 Hexbear users almost instantly and on almost no one else, is basically 0. So they’re not just injecting talking points about labor and Gaza into random stories, they’re faking votes to boost it. Good stuff. Glad y’all are federating and bringing the behavior that everyone is always super happy to see.

[–] flamingos@feddit.uk 5 points 2 days ago (3 children)

I checked in the DB and the other Hexbear votes happened quite a bit after the comment was made. I don't think someone doing voter fraud would wait 50 minutes, then another 15, to boost a comment, but maybe I'm underestimating their dedication.

[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 0 points 2 days ago (2 children)

IDK, man. Try this:

SELECT p.actor_id, comment_id, score, cl.published FROM person p, comment_like cl, comment c WHERE cl.post_id = 26726744 AND p.id = cl.person_id AND c.id = cl.comment_id ORDER BY cl.published ASC;

Hit slash and type hexbear to highlight all the hexbears. That little grouping of three of their users coming in and giving out basically identical voting patterns, all of a sudden, at 18:16 / 18:29 / 18:31 (in my instance's timestamps) after almost an hour of silence, looks pretty extremely sus. To me.

[–] flamingos@feddit.uk 0 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I got the same timestamps with:

select name, score, comment_like.published from comment_like 
left join person on comment_like.person_id = person.id 
where comment_id = 16354453;

IDK, I just don't think this is the pattern of someone boosting their comment (see !albumartporn@lemmy.world for actual vote manipulation), or at the very least I don't think it's Plinky doing it (he's a fairly regular contributor to UK threads and this is the first time those accounts have interacted with his comments here).

I don't know why Hexbearers are so insular (I have also noticed they rarely interact with stuff not from their own instance), it could be malicious or just another aspect of the annoying culture they've developed over there.

[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat -1 points 2 days ago

I get that yeah, but mine gives more context. Seeing other comments besides that one that the three accounts voted on in exactly the same fashion as each other, in the same order, and the pace of voting generally to give context to how unusual the little block all within 15 minutes is, gives a clearer impression of how unusual it is. The other comment they all voted the same way on wasn't any kind of particularly notable comment to draw every Hexbear user's attention somehow.

It's not really ironclad or anything, but it's certainly sus. And yes I agree, it sort of looks like Plinky's comment and voting was genuine, and then one Hexbear person noticed the comment after a while and voted on it three times. Why they do that sort of thing, I don't really have a clear idea.

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