WASHINGTON: A Russian propaganda campaign backed by the Kremlin that spread online disinformation in the United States and was boosted by artificial intelligence has been disrupted, the Justice Department said Tuesday.
US officials described the Internet operation as part of an ongoing effort to sow discord in the US through the creation of fictitious social media profiles that purport to belong to authentic Americans but are actually designed to advance the aims of the Russian government, including by spreading disinformation about its war with Ukraine.
US officials said the scheme was organized in 2022 after a senior editor at RT, a Russian-state-funded media organization that has registered with the Justice Department as a foreign agent, helped develop technology for a so-called social media bot farm. It received the support and financial approval of the Kremlin, with an officer of Russia’s Federal Security Service — or FSB — leading a private intelligence organization that promoted disinformation on social media through a network of fake accounts.
The RT press office did not respond directly to a question about the allegations.
The disruption of the bot farm comes as US officials have raised alarms about the potential for AI technology to impact this year’s elections and amid ongoing concerns that foreign influence campaigns by adversaries could sway the opinions of unsuspecting voters, as happened during the 2016 presidential campaign when Russians launched a huge but hidden social media trolling campaign aimed in part at helping Republican Donald Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton.
“Today’s actions represent a first in disrupting a Russian-sponsored Generative AI-enhanced social media bot farm,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement. “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.”
Among the fake posts, according to the Justice Department, was a video that was posted by a purported Minneapolis, Minnesota resident that showed Russian President Vladimir Putin saying that areas of Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania were “gifts” to those countries from liberating Russian forces during World War II.
In another instance, the Justice Department said, someone posing as a US constituent responded to a federal candidate’s social media posts about the war in Ukraine with a video of Putin justifying Russia’s actions.
As part of the disruption, the Justice Department seized two domain names and searched 968 accounts on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
According to a joint cybersecurity advisory released Tuesday by US, Dutch and Canadian authorities, the software was used to spread disinformation to countries including Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Ukraine and Israel.
The advisory said that as of last June, the software — known as Meliorator — only worked on X but that its functionality probably could be expanded to other social media networks.
US disrupts Russian government-backed disinformation campaign that relied on AI technology
https://arab.news/wa7b5
US disrupts Russian government-backed disinformation campaign that relied on AI technology
- Kremlin, with an officer of Russia’s Federal Security Service — or FSB — leading a private intelligence organization that promoted disinformation on social media through a network of fake accounts
How decades of deforestation led to catastrophic Sumatra floods
- At least 1.4m hectares of forest in flood-affected provinces were lost to deforestation since 2016
- Indonesian officials vow to review permits, investigate companies suspected of worsening the disasters
JAKARTA: About a week after floods and landslides devastated three provinces in Indonesia’s Sumatra island, Rubama witnessed firsthand how the deluge left not only debris and rubble but also log after log of timber.
They were the first thing that she saw when she arrived in the Beutong Ateuh Banggalang district of Aceh, where at least two villages were wiped out by floodwaters.
“We saw these neatly cut logs moving down the river. Some were uprooted from the ground, but there are logs cut into specific sizes. This shows that the disaster in Aceh, in Sumatra, it’s all linked to illegal forestry practices,” Rubama, empowerment manager at Aceh-based environmental organization HAKA, told Arab News.
Monsoon rains exacerbated by a rare tropical storm caused flash floods and triggered landslides across Aceh, North Sumatra, and West Sumatra in late November, killing 969 people and injuring more than 5,000 as of Wednesday, as search efforts continue for 252 others who remain missing.
In the worst-hit areas, residents were cut off from power and communication for days, as floodwater destroyed bridges and torrents of mud from landslides blocked roads, hampering rescue efforts and aid delivery to isolated villages.
When access to the affected regions gradually improved and the scale of the disaster became clearer, clips of washed-up trunks and piles of timber crashing into residential areas circulated widely online, showing how the catastrophic nature of the storm was compounded by deforestation.
“This is real, we’re seeing the evidence today of what happens when a disaster strikes, how deforestation plays a major role in the aftermath,” Rubama said.
For decades, vast sections of Sumatra’s natural forest have been razed and converted for mining, palm oil plantations and pulpwood farms.
Around 1.4 million hectares of forest in Aceh, North Sumatra and West Sumatra were lost to deforestation between 2016 and 2025 alone, according to Indonesian environmental group WALHI, citing operations by 631 permit-holding companies.
Deforestation in Sumatra stripped away natural defenses that once absorbed rainfall and stabilized soil, making the island more vulnerable to extreme weather, said Riandra Purba, executive director of WALHI’s chapter in North Sumatra.
Purba said the Sumatra floods should serve as a “serious warning” for the government to issue permits more carefully.
“Balancing natural resource management requires a sustainable approach. We must not sacrifice natural benefits for the financial benefit of a select few,” he told Arab News.
“(The government) must evaluate all the environmental policies in the region … (and) implement strict monitoring, including law enforcement that will create a deterrent effect to those who violate existing laws.”
In Batang Toru, one of the worst-hit areas in North Sumatra where seven companies operate, hundreds of hectares had been cleared for gold mining and energy projects, leaving slopes exposed and riverbeds choked with sediment.
When torrential rains hit last month, rivers in the area were swollen with runoff and timber, while villages were buried or swept away.
As public outrage grew in the wake of the Sumatra floods, Indonesian officials, including Environment Minister Hanif Faisol Nurofiq, have moved to review existing permits and investigate companies suspected of worsening the disaster.
“Our focus is to ensure whether company activities are influencing land stability and (increasing) risks of landslides or floods,” Nurofiq told Indonesian magazine Tempo on Saturday.
Sumatra’s natural forest cover stood at about 11.6 million hectares as of 2023, or about 24 percent of the island’s total area, falling short of the 30 to 33 percent forest coverage needed to maintain ecological balance.
The deadly floods and landslides in Sumatra also highlighted the urgency of disaster mitigation in Indonesia, especially amid the global climate crisis, said Kiki Taufik, forest campaigner at Greenpeace Indonesia.
Over two weeks since floods and landslides inundated communities in Sumatra, a few villages remain isolated and over 800,000 people are still displaced.
“This tropical cyclone, Senyar, in theory, experts said that it has a very low probability of forming near the equator, but what we have seen is that it happened, and this is caused by rapid global warming … which is triggering hydrometeorological disasters,” Taufik told Arab News.
“The government needs to give more attention, and even more budget allocation, to mitigate disaster risks … Prevention is much more important than (disaster) management, so this must be a priority for the government.”
