US authorities have thwarted Russia's attempts to spread disinformation using artificial intelligence bots that created fake profiles on the social network X. Writes UNN with reference to Bloomberg.
According to documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday, an editor at a Russian state media outlet developed software for a bot farm funded by an FSB officer. Between June and December, the project was active with nearly 1,000 profiles masquerading as Americans, spreading pro-Russian state narratives.
One of the profiles claimed to be a user from Minneapolis, Minnesota, and posted a video in which Putin allegedly claims that some territories of Poland, Ukraine, and Lithuania became part of Russia after World War II.
Another profile, under the name of "Sue Williamson" from Gresham, Oregon, posted a video questioning the number of foreign fighters attached to Ukrainian troops. Platform X removed the profiles, but did not comment on the situation.
The bot farm was previously organized by an individual who worked in 2022 as the deputy editor-in-chief of RT, a Russian government-funded media agency, according to an affidavit included in government documents. The documents do not reveal the identity of the individual.
This person, who remains an employee of RT, became the head of the digital media department in 2023. According to US claims, it was under her leadership that bot farm software was developed, a project that received approval and funding from a Russian intelligence officer, according to official sworn statements.
Individuals associated with the bot farm also transferred funds abroad to purchase two domain names from a US company to create private mail servers, according to court documents. According to the US, these domains were used to create email addresses that enabled the registration of at least 968 fake social media accounts.
Russia intended to use this bot farm to spread foreign disinformation created by artificial intelligence, scaling up its AI work to undermine our partners in Ukraine and influence geopolitical narratives favorable to the Russian government
Recall
The SBU neutralized two bot farmsoperating in Zhytomyr and Dnipro regions. The defendants helped Russian special services hack into the phones of Ukrainian defenders and spread Kremlin propaganda.