US says it disrupted Russian social media influence operation

The U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday that it disrupted a Russian operation that used fake social media accounts enhanced by artificial intelligence to spread pro-Kremlin messages in the United States and abroad.

The news comes four months before the U.S. presidential election, which security experts widely believe will be the target of both hacking and covert social media influence attempts by foreign adversaries. Senior U.S. officials have said publicly they are monitoring for schemes intended to disrupt the vote.

The alleged operation, according to prosecutors, was organized through a private intelligence organization based in Russia staffed by Russian intelligence officers and former employees of the Moscow-based, government-funded news outlet Russia Today, or RT.

This private organization had designed a custom, AI-powered platform to create, control and manage hundreds of fake social accounts, which were made to look like representing real Americans, according to court documents.