DOJ Disrupts Russian Propaganda Campaign Using Artificial Intelligence on Social Media, Implicating Americans and Implications for Ukraine
In July, the Justice Department said it disrupted a Russian propaganda campaign that used artificial intelligence tools and relied on fake social media accounts impersonating Americans to spread disinformation in the U.S. and other countries. It said the effort was done by an editor.
The Justice Department says it was meant to influence voters in the US and elsewhere and reduce international support for Ukraine.
A Tennessee-based media network that produces shows for high-profile right-wing influencers such as Benny Johnson and Tim Pool was largely funded by Russian state-backed news network RT, according to a federal indictment against two RT employees that the US Department of Justice unsealed on Wednesday. The DOJ claims the US company—which WIRED, along with other news outlets, was able to identify as Tenet Media but goes unnamed in the indictment—posted hundreds of videos on social media that pushed Kremlin-approved talking points.
Russian companies Social Design Agency, Structura National Technology and ANO Dialog were named as being involved in the Doppelganger investigation, which resulted in the seizure of 32 internet domain names.
The effort involved Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, including First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office Sergei Vladilenovich Kiriyenko, it said.
The Biden administration warned actors against interfering with US elections. Attorney General Garland said that the Justice Department would not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to exploit our country’s free exchange of ideas in order to covertly further its own propaganda efforts.
The findings were dismissed in a statement that made light of their responses in an office poll like “Ha!” and ” 2016 called and it wants its clichés back.”
The Doppleganger campaign: Putin’s inner circle and the Kremlin are actively targeting the American public, according to a congressional intelligence report
It’s not the first time the US has accused Russia of interfering with elections. Russian agents were accused of election interference by law enforcement after the election. The Senate Intelligence Committee released a report in 2020 stating that President Putin supported an influence campaign intended to support Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.
“Russia remains the most active foreign threat to our elections,” Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told senators in May at a briefing about election risks.
The campaign, which was first identified by researchers at EU DisinfoLab in 2022 and was given the name Doppleganger, has impersonated news outlets including The Washington Post and Fox News, and it has posed as NATO, the Polish and Ukrainian governments, the German police and the French Foreign Ministry.
In March, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned two Russian companies, Social Design Agency and Structura, as well as their founders, for launching a network of fake accounts and phony news websites, saying they carried out the campaign “at the direction of the Russian Presidential Administration.”
The campaign has been using fake French-language sites to push claims of corruption at the Paris Olympics, according to a Microsoft report.
The bot farm used AI to create the fake profiles on X, formerly known as Twitter. The accounts posted support for Russia’s war in Ukraine and other pro-Kremlin narratives. The work was done by an editor at the Russian state-owned news outlet, according to the Justice Department. The project was funded and run by a Russian intelligence officer.
The US states that the influence campaign was directed by members of Putin’s inner circle, and that it created media brands that were similar to existing ones. They also allegedly created fake social media personas of non-Russian citizens to post comments.
“This seizure illustrates vividly what the U.S. government and private sector partners have warned for months: the Russian government and its proxies are aggressively accelerating the Kremlin’s covert efforts to seed false stories and amplify disinformation directed at the American public,” DOJ National Security Division chief Matthew G. Olsen said in a statement.
Prosecutors say in the indictment that Tenet and its founders—who also go unnamed in the indictment but are right-wing influencer Lauren Chen and her husband, Liam Donovan, according to corporate records—actively concealed the company’s links to Russia from the individual creators.
The Justice Department identifies Tenet Media only as “US Company-1” but notes in the indictment that the company describes itself as a “network of heterodox commentators that focus on Western political and cultural issues.” That language is identical to the description on Tenet Media’s website.
Johnson, Pool, Rubin, and Southern didn’t immediately respond to questions about wrongdoing, and nobody is accused of doing anything. “We are disturbed by the allegations in today’s indictment,” Johnson wrote on X, referring to himself and his lawyers, “which make clear that myself and other influencers were victims in this alleged scheme.” Pool also released a statement on X, saying in part that “should these allegations prove true, I as well as the other personalities and commentators were deceived and are victims.” Rubin forwarded Pool’s post.
With the tagline “Fearless voices live here,” Tenet Media’s network includes online creators known for their right-wing politics, including Johnson, Pool, Dave Rubin, and Lauren Southern. In addition to the followings of the network’s individual creators, which collectively number in the millions, Tenet Media itself boasts more than 315,000 followers on YouTube and thousands more across Facebook, Instagram, X, and TikTok.