For a while I thought there were only a few paid Russian trolls (true Russian nationals) infecting FR. I was naive. Russia spends the big bucks on propaganda and controls their own social media and attempts to control Ukraine’s, America’s, and western Europe’s.
I remember back in the 1980s being frustrated with the depiction of El Salvador in American media. At that time the communist FMLN front groups had information offices in many large cities and universities around the world … more than the government of El Salvador had embassies and consulates. Front groups like CISPES (Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador) and Christian Education Seminars were well funded while anti-communist writers in El Salvador like Mario Rosenthal operated on shoe string budgets. Now it is the same as the extreme Left outspends us again.
Yes:
9JUL2024 State-Sponsored Russian Media Leverages Meliorator Software for Foreign Malign Influence Activity
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Cyber National Mission Force (CNMF), in partnership with the Netherlands General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD), Netherlands Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD), the Netherlands Police (DNP), and the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CCCS), (hereinafter referred to as the authoring organizations) are releasing this advisory to warn social media companies that Russian state-sponsored actors have leveraged the covert Meliorator software for foreign malign influence activity benefiting the Russian Government. Affiliates of RT (formerly Russia Today), a Russian state-sponsored media organization, used Meliorator—a covert artificial intelligence (AI) enhanced software package—to create fictitious online personas, representing a number of nationalities, to post content on X (formerly Twitter). Using this tool, RT affiliates disseminated disinformation to and about a number of countries, including the United States, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Ukraine, and Israel.
Read details in the cybersecurity advisory
https://www.ic3.gov/Media/News/2024/240709.pdf
https://www.justice.gov/d9/2024-07/affadavit_for_968_x_accounts.pdf
https://www.justice.gov/d9/2024-07/affidavit_for_two_domains.pdf