The U.S. Department of Justice has successfully disrupted a Russian propaganda campaign that employed a bot farm powered by artificial intelligence (AI) to disseminate disinformation across various social media platforms, including X (formerly known as Twitter). The campaign, orchestrated by a Russian intelligence officer and funded by the Kremlin, aimed to promote pro-Kremlin narratives and support Russia’s war in Ukraine.
According to the Justice Department, the bot farm, along with the AI software driving it, was organized by an unnamed editor at RT, the Russian state-owned media outlet. This revelation comes at a time when intelligence and security officials have been warning about Russia’s escalating propaganda efforts, particularly in the midst of a busy global election year. The Kremlin has a history of employing fake social media accounts to sow discord and advance its own interests.
The advancements in AI technology have raised concerns about the potential for producing propaganda and disinformation at scale. Both Meta, the owner of Facebook, and OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, have recently identified foreign influence campaigns, some linked to Russia, utilizing AI to manipulate public opinion.
FBI Director Christopher Wray stated that Russia intended to employ this bot farm to disseminate AI-generated foreign disinformation, leveraging AI to undermine Ukraine’s international support and influence geopolitical narratives favorable to the Russian government.
RT, which has been instrumental in promoting the Russian government’s agenda to international audiences, including the U.S., has faced limitations on its reach since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The European Union banned Russian state media and tech companies, including TikTok, Facebook, and Google, in response to the invasion. As a result, RT has been seeking alternate distribution channels, and the bot farm was part of those efforts, as per the DOJ.
The Russian campaign involved nearly a thousand fake profiles on X, with one user claiming to reside in Minneapolis. This user posted videos of Russian President Vladimir Putin justifying Russian actions in Ukraine and asserting that parts of Ukraine, Poland, and Lithuania were “gifts” from Russian forces after World War II. X suspended the accounts due to terms of service violations. The extent of the following and interaction with the fake accounts remains unclear, as X did not respond to requests for comment.
In addition to disrupting the campaign, the DOJ seized two domain names used by the bot farm to create email accounts for setting up the fake X accounts.