US and Allies Take Down Russian Propaganda Network Using AI

The US and its partners shut down a Russian propaganda network that used AI to run almost 1,000 fake accounts on the social media site X.

The US and a number of its partners said on Tuesday that they had taken control of a sophisticated Russian propaganda bots that ran almost 1,000 fake accounts on the social network X with the help of AI.

In the past year, governments have used AI more and more to get their messages out to more people and in a more trustworthy way. However, this takedown is unique because it was linked to a member of the Russian FSB intelligence service and a former senior editor at the state-run publication RT, which used to be called Russia Today, according to court documents.

In an incredibly detailed joint warning, the US, Canada, and the Netherlands found a number of software programmes that were used to run the network. One of these was Meliorator, which made fake users in different countries called “souls.” The operation had used two web domains to register the email addresses behind the accounts. The FBI was able to get a court order to take control of those domains.

In a statement, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray said that today’s moves were the first time that a Russian-funded Generative AI-enhanced social media bot farm had been shut down. Russia planned to use this bot farm to spread foreign propaganda made by AI. They planned to use AI to help them do more work to hurt our allies in Ukraine and change global stories that would benefit the Russian government.

Original material was posted by automated accounts with more detailed bios, and those posts were liked and shared by a variety of more generic accounts. To find out how successful the campaign was, officials did not answer questions about how many real users saw the posts and whether any of them shared them with other people.

Bypassing X’s User Verification

By automatically copying one-time passcodes sent to registered email addresses, the system got around one of X’s ways of making sure that users were real. Officials said that references to Facebook and Instagram in the programme code showed that the operation planned to grow to those sites.

The agencies said that social media companies should make it easier to catch behaviour that is done by computers without people knowing. X did what the court told them to do and gave the FBI details about the accounts. They then deleted them. The Washington Post asked questions of the company, but they didn’t answer.

When the Supreme Court supported the right of officials to report foreign influence operations, the Justice Department thanked X for helping with the investigation. This shows that the government and the big social media companies are talking to each other better.