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The FBI seized control of a Russia-owned AI-driven social media bot farm used to spread propaganda and disinformation in many countries, including the US. The Justice Department claims busting two domain names and 968 social media accounts that were used by Russian malicious actors.
The agencies involved in the operation (the FBI, the CNMF, the Canadian CCCS, the Netherlands AIVD, MIVD, and Netherlands Police) released a joint advisory to raise awareness of the propaganda mill’s methods and intentions. They stated that the malicious actors used the covert Meliorator software for foreign malign influence activity meant to benefit Moscow.
According to Interesting Engineering, the actors obtained and controlled the domain names “mlrtr.com” and “otanmail.com” from a US-based provider, then used them to create the email servers that ultimately allowed them to create fake social media accounts using the bot farm software. These online personas were used to spread “disinformation to and about a number of countries, including the United States, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Ukraine, and Israel,” as was mentioned in the statement.
The fake social media profiles created by the tool were reportedly very realistic and convincing, deploying content similar to typical social media users and mirroring disinformation of other bot personas, thus perpetuating the use of pre-existing false narratives to amplify malign foreign influence.
Attorney General Merrick B. Garland spoke about the operation: “With these actions, the Justice Department has disrupted a Russian-government backed, AI-enabled propaganda campaign to use a bot farm to spread disinformation in the United States and abroad… As the Russian government continues to wage its brutal war in Ukraine and threatens democracies around the world, the Justice Department will continue to deploy all of our legal authorities to counter Russian aggression and protect the American people.”
FBI Director Christopher Wray also stated: “Today’s actions represent a first in disrupting a Russian-sponsored Generative AI-enhanced social media bot farm,” and added that Russia intended to use this bot farm to disseminate AI-generated foreign disinformation, “scaling their work with the assistance of AI to undermine our partners in Ukraine and influence geopolitical narratives favorable to the Russian government.”
