US claims to bust Russian bot farm spreading propaganda on X [Video]

The US Department of Justice said it has cracked down on hundreds of X accounts which it claimed were part of an “AI-enhanced” Russian bot farm.

The fake accounts, the DOJ said, were designed to look like they belonged to Americans and posted “Russian propaganda content” about the war in Ukraine.

It seized 968 social media accounts and two domain names supposedly used to promote messages in support of the Russian government, an affidavit unsealed on Tuesday revealed.

An investigation conducted by the DOJ, the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security and police in the Netherlands found that a deputy editor-in-chief at Russia’s state TV news station RT “led the development of software that was able to create and to operate a social media bot farm”, the affidavit claimed.

“Today’s action …