In a significant blow to Russian disinformation efforts, the United States and several allied nations announced on Tuesday that they had successfully dismantled a sophisticated Russian propaganda operation. This operation utilized artificial intelligence to manage nearly a thousand covert accounts on the social network X.
The takedown is particularly notable as Western intelligence agencies traced the operation back to an officer of the Russian FSB intelligence force and a former senior editor at the state-controlled publication RT, formerly known as Russia Today, according to court filings.
In a detailed joint advisory, agencies from the United States, the Netherlands, and Canada revealed the various software programs used to manage the network, including one named Meliorator. This software created fictitious users, referred to as “souls,” in various countries. The FBI secured a court order to seize two web domains that the operation had used to register the email addresses behind the accounts.
“Today’s actions represent a first in disrupting a Russian-sponsored Generative AI-enhanced social media bot farm,” stated FBI Director Christopher A. Wray. He added that Russia aimed to use this bot farm to disseminate AI-generated foreign disinformation, scaling their efforts with AI to undermine Western allies and influence geopolitical narratives favorable to the Russian government.
Automated accounts with detailed biographies posted original content, while a supporting cast of more generic accounts liked and reshared those posts. Officials did not disclose how many real users saw the posts or whether any spread the messages further, leaving the effectiveness of the campaign unclear.
The system managed to evade one of X’s techniques for verifying user authenticity by automatically copying one-time passcodes sent to the registered email addresses. References to Facebook and Instagram in the program code suggested that the operation intended to expand to those platforms, officials noted.
The agencies recommended that social media companies enhance their methods for detecting covertly automated behavior. X complied with a court order to provide information on the accounts to the FBI and subsequently deleted them. The company did not respond to questions from The Washington Post.
The Justice Department expressed gratitude to X for its cooperation during the investigation, indicating improved communication between the government and major social media companies following the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold officials’ right to point out foreign influence operations.
John Scott-Railton, a researcher at the Canadian nonprofit Citizen Lab, remarked that the detailed information provided by the countries about the botnet’s inner workings would assist other investigators and companies in identifying similar threats. He emphasized that the problem is not going away, hence the importance of sharing information widely.
The documents revealed that AI’s large language models have enabled Russian propagandists to scale their operations and assist with translation, helping them avoid detection software that looks for repeated use of the same internet protocol addresses and other identifiers.
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