The US Justice Department, working in coordination with Canadian and Dutch authorities, has seized two domain names which it claims were being used by Russian-backed hackers to spread disinformation on social media.
The FBI has issued a joint cybersecurity advisory with its international partners, detailing the make-up of an AI-enhanced social media bot farm that was used to spread propaganda around the world.
The bot farm, known as “Meliorator,” created fake accounts that often purported to be based in the United States. The fake accounts spread pro-Russian narratives and disinformation on Twitter, mimicking the tone of genuine users.
The Justice Department says that it has seized two domain names – “MLRTR.com” and “OTANMAIL.com” – used to register the bot profiles, and searched a total of 968 Twitter accounts associated with the campaign.
Meliorator’s activity began in early 2022, when an unnamed individual working as a deputy editor-in-chief at state-run Russian news organisation RT sought alternative methods to distribute information beyond its standard TV news broadcasts.
RT perhaps made a timely decision looking for an alternative method to spread its message. This is because its American channel shut down in March 2022 after being dropped by DirecTV and Dish Network.
The FBI says that the Meliorator bot farm project was subsequently integrated into an FSB operation that was approved by the Kremlin to sow discord in the United States.
Examples of pro-Russian messages pushed out by the bot farm on Twitter included posts by a purported US citizen which included a video of President Putin justifying Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The authorities cited other examples, including a post by a purported resident of Minneapolis who posted a video of President Putin sharing his belief that parts of Poland, Ukraine, and Lithuania were “gifts” to those countries from the Russian forces that liberated them from Nazi control during World War II.
“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,” said 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. We will not hesitate to shut down bot farms, seize illegally obtained internet domains, and take the fight to our adversaries.”
The US authorities requested that X (formerly known as Twitter) suspend the remaining bot accounts for terms of service violations, as well as seizing domains used to create the accounts.
The Justice Department says that its investigation is ongoing.
“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,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “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.”