Experts say the Kremlin could include artificial intelligence (AI) in its efforts to manipulate the November presidential election through influence schemes.
Last week, the U.S. Justice Department unsealed indictments that were part of an ongoing investigation into alleged plots by the Russian government to try to influence American voters through a variety of disinformation campaigns.
US Attorney General Merrick Garland has revealed a major crackdown on influence exerted through state media and other online platforms, part of a campaign dubbed “Doppleganger.” It focused on employees of the state-controlled Russian media outlet RT, but other indictments published this week showed the broader scope and complexity of Russia’s efforts.
The United States also seized more than two dozen internet domains related to the operation and establishment of an Election Threat Task Force, which includes FBI Director Christopher Wray and senior Justice Department officials, according to CBS News.
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“This is extremely serious and we're going to treat it accordingly,” Garland said in announcing the indictment alongside Wray on Wednesday.
FBI Director Christopher Wray, right, speaks during a meeting of the Department of Justice's Election Threat Task Force at the Department of Justice on Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024, in Washington, D.C., as Attorney General Merrick Garland looks on. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
The allegations included the alleged use of artificial intelligence tools to create social media profiles “posing as U.S. (or other non-Russian) citizens” and creating the impression of “a legitimate media outlet’s website.”
“Among the methods Doppelganger used to attract audiences to the cybersquatted domains and unique media outlets were the deployment of “influencers” around the world, paid social media advertisements (in some cases created using artificial intelligence tools), and the creation of social media profiles posing as U.S. (or other non-Russian) citizens to post comments on social media platforms with links to the cybersquatted domains,” the indictment states.
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Russia’s “Doppleganger” operation seeks to use deepfake content alongside other methods to manipulate the November presidential election through influence schemes. (iStock)
The U.S. Treasury Department expanded on these allegations in an announcement designating 10 individuals and two entities under the Office of Foreign Assets Control, allowing the United States to impose visa restrictions and a Rewards for Justice award of up to $10 million related to such transactions.
The Treasury said Russian state-sponsored actors have used artificial intelligence-generated deepfakes and disinformation “to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral process and institutions.”
The Treasury named Russian Autonomous Nonprofit Organization (ANO) Dialog and ANO's Dialog Regions for using “deep fake content to develop Russian disinformation campaigns,” including “false online posts on popular social media accounts… that were said to consist of forged documents, among other materials, to elicit an emotional response from audiences.”
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In late 2023, ANO Dialog allegedly “identified personalities from the United States, the United Kingdom, and other countries as potential targets for deepfake projects.” The “War on Fakes” website served as a major medium for spreading this false information, which also used bot accounts targeting polling stations in the 2024 U.S. election.
Investigative journalist Christo Grozev believes the Kremlin was “losing to the West” in the first months of the invasion of Ukraine, prompting the decision to use artificial intelligence and “all sorts of new methods to make it indistinguishable from the regular flow of information.” (Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for Unfinished Live)
In an interview with PBS News Hour, Belgian investigative journalist Christo Grozev revealed that complaints about Russia’s “global propaganda effort” – that the Kremlin was “losing to the West” in the first months of the invasion of Ukraine – motivated the decision to use AI and “all kinds of new methods to make it indistinguishable from the regular flow of information.”
“They plan to make advertising inserts, which are actually camouflaged as news, and in this way bombard the target population with things that can be misinterpreted as news, but which are actually advertising content,” Grozev explained.
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“They plan to disguise that advertising content on a personal level as content from your favorite news sites,” he warned. “We haven't seen it in action yet, but it's an intention and they claim to have developed the technology to do so.”
“They're very explicit that they're not going to use Russia-related platforms or independent platforms,” he added. “They're going to infiltrate the platform that the target is already using. And that's what's scary.”
