In a new security report, Mehta identified Russia as the “number one source” of coordinated illicit influence (CIB) activities worldwide, saying the country was conducting at least 39 “covert influence operations.”
The Russian influence operation used generative AI to create fake journalist personas and publish articles on fictitious news sites that distorted information from real articles, Meta said in the report.
While Russia’s previous attempts to influence U.S. politics relied on socio-cultural topics of specific countries to garner support, the current “deception campaign” is primarily focused on Russia’s war in Ukraine, for which Russian operatives are trying to garner support, Meta’s report said.
Russia has had a frosty relationship with Meta since its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Facebook withdrew all advertising in Russia shortly after the invasion and blocked Russian advertising. Months later, Russia classified Meta as an extremist and terrorist organization.
“From now until the U.S. election in November, we expect Russia-based activity to promote supportive commentary for candidates who oppose aid to Ukraine and criticize those who advocate for Ukraine’s defense support,” the Meta report said. “This could take the form of blaming U.S. economic difficulties on financial support for Ukraine, portraying the Ukrainian government as untrustworthy, and amplifying voices expressing pro-Russian views on the war and its prospects.”
Meta said it was targeting and removing more deceptive posts and accounts that relied heavily on AI or were run by contractors in its fraud campaigns. Meta said neither was particularly effective at evading detection, and described these operations as “low quality and high volume” and had flaws in operational security.
“GenAI-enabled tactics are only providing incremental productivity and content generation benefits to threat actors, not impeding our ability to disrupt their influence,” Meta’s report states. “In fact, we continue to see real people accuse these networks of trolling as they struggle to attract real audiences.”
If you’re a current or former Meta employee with a story to share, please contact us at kbalevic@businessinsider.com.
