The United States and several allies announced on Tuesday that they had taken down a sophisticated Russian propaganda mill that utilized artificial intelligence to manage nearly a thousand covert accounts on the social network X.
Who Was Behind the Operation?
The takedown is notable because Western intelligence agencies traced it 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, as detailed in court filings.
How Did They Operate?
In a detailed joint advisory, agencies from the United States, Netherlands, and Canada identified various software programs used to manage the network, including one named Meliorator. This program created fictitious users, known as “souls,” in various countries. The FBI obtained a court order to seize two web domains that the operation had used to register the email addresses behind the accounts.
What Was the Goal?
According to FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, “Today’s actions represent a first in disrupting a Russian-sponsored Generative AI-enhanced social media bot farm.” The aim was to use this bot farm to disseminate AI-generated foreign disinformation, scaling their efforts with AI to undermine partners in Ukraine and influence geopolitical narratives favorable to the Russian government.
How Effective Was the Campaign?
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, making it unclear how effective the campaign was.
What Measures Were Taken?
The system evaded one of X’s techniques for verifying the authenticity of users by automatically copying one-time passcodes sent to the registered email addresses. References to Facebook and Instagram in the program code indicated plans to expand to those platforms. Agencies recommended that social media companies improve their methods for catching covertly automated behavior.
X complied with a court order to provide information on the accounts to the FBI, then deleted them. The company did not respond to questions from The Washington Post.
What Was the Outcome?
The Justice Department thanked X for its cooperation during the investigation, signaling better communications between the government and major social media companies after the Supreme Court upheld the right of officials to point out foreign influence operations.
What’s Next?
John Scott-Railton, a researcher at the Canadian nonprofit Citizen Lab, said the countries provided detailed information about the inner workings of the botnet to help other investigators and companies know what to look for. “They don’t think this problem is going anywhere, so they are sharing widely,” Scott-Railton said.
The documents show that AI’s large language models have helped Russian propagandists scale their operations and assist with translation. It also helps them avoid detection software that looks for repeated use of the same internet protocol addresses and other identifiers.
However, many other systems are already operating and will improve as they adapt to what is being detected and what is getting through, Scott-Railton said. “This isn’t even the tip of the iceberg,” he said. “This is the drip of the iceberg.”
For more details, read the full article on The Washington Post.
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