The Department of Justice (DoJ) said today that it seized two domain names from an unnamed individual working for the state-run RT news organization in Russia, and alleged that the individual and others in Russia were using the domain names to “create an AI-enhanced social media bot farm that spread disinformation in the United States and abroad.”
The social media bot farm, DoJ said, “used elements of AI to create fictitious social media profiles – often purporting to belong to individuals in the United States – which the operators then used to promote messages in support of Russian government objectives.”
DoJ defined the bot farm as “an enhanced software package which allows for the creation of false personas on social media platforms,” adding that bot farms “are enhanced by integrating components which contain artificial intelligence, such as image production or text generation.”
According to DoJ, the unnamed Russian worked as a deputy editor-in-chief at the RT news organization, and along with other unnamed persons began to purchase infrastructure for the bot farm operation in 2022.
In 2023, the unnamed Russians worked with at least one Russian government official to create a “private intelligence organization” that aimed to “advance the mission” of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and the Russian government, “including by spreading disinformation through the social media accounts created by the bot farm.”
“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,” commented U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland today.
“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,” Garland said.
“Today’s action demonstrates that the Justice Department and our partners will not tolerate Russian government actors and their agents deploying AI to sow disinformation and fuel division among Americans,” added Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco.
“As malign actors accelerate their criminal misuse of AI, the Justice Department will respond and we will prioritize disruptive actions with our international partners and the private sector,” she said. “We will not hesitate to shut down bot farms, seize illegally obtained internet domains, and take the fight to our adversaries.”
In connection with the domain name seizure, DoJ and the FBI, along with allied law enforcement and cybersecurity authorities in Canada and the Netherlands, published a joint cybersecurity advisory that details the technology behind the bot farm.
“The advisory will allow social media platforms and researchers to identify and prevent the Russian government’s further use of the technology,” DoJ said. It added that social media operator X Corp. voluntarily suspended the remaining bot accounts identified in DoJ’s court documents for terms of service violations.
