Almost a thousand Twitter accounts controlled by a large bot farm pushing Russian propaganda and domains used to register the bots were taken down in a joint international law enforcement operation led by the U.S. Justice Department.
Organized and managed by a deputy editor-in-chief at Russian state-run news organization Russia Today (RT) and a Russian FSB officer, the bots disseminated disinformation targeting Twitter users worldwide since 2022 using an AI-enabled software named Meliorator.
RT affiliates used Meliorator to create authentic-looking social media accounts posing as real people from multiple countries worldwide to amplify false narratives and Russian malign foreign influence on Twitter.
The social media bot farm allowed RT to disseminate information widely, aligning with RT’s leadership goal to expand information distribution beyond traditional TV broadcasts.
“As early as 2022, RT had access to Meliorator, an AI-enabled bot farm generation and management software to disseminate disinformation to and about a number of countries, including the United States, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Ukraine, and Israel,” the FBI said.
“Meliorator was designed to be used on social media networks to create ‘authentic’ appearing personas en masse, allowing for the propagation of disinformation, which could assist Russia in exacerbating discord and trying to alter public opinion as part of information operations.”
While in June 2024, Meliorator only worked on X (previously known as Twitter), analysis suggests that its operators would likely expand its functionality to support other social media networks.
The bot farm registered new Twitter bots using private email servers at the mlrtr[.]com and otanmail[.]com domains, which were seized [affidavit] as part of the DOJ-led operation.
X also took down 968 social media profiles [affidavit] identified as being part of RT’s bot farm, often claiming to belong to individuals in the United States.
“Today’s actions represent a first in disrupting a Russian-sponsored Generative AI-enhanced social media bot farm,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray on Tuesday.
“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.”
The FBI and the Cyber National Mission Force (CNMF) published a joint advisory [PDF] with more technical details on the Meliorator software powering the bot farm in partnership with the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CCCS), the Netherlands General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD), the Netherlands Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD), and the Netherlands Police.