A Pro-Russia Disinformation Campaign Is Using Free AI Tools to Fuel a ‘Content Explosion’

https://www.wired.com/story/pro-russia-disinformation-campaign-free-ai-tools/

Posted by wiredmagazine

5 comments

  1. A pro-Russia disinformation campaign is leveraging consumer artificial intelligence tools to fuel a “content explosion” focused on exacerbating existing tensions around global elections, Ukraine, and immigration, among other controversial issues, according to [new research published last week](https://checkfirst.network/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Overload%C2%A02_%20Main%20Draft%20Report_compressed.pdf).

    The campaign, known by many names including [Operation Overload](https://www.recordedfuture.com/research/operation-overload-impersonates-media-influence-2024-us-election) and %5BMatryoshka%5D(https://www.wired.com/story/kremlin-backed-accounts-trying-to-destroy-yulia-navalnaya/) (other researchers have also tied it to [Storm-1679](https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2024/06/02/russia-cyber-bots-disinformation-2024-paris-olympics/)), has been operating since 2023 and has been aligned with the Russian government by multiple groups, including [Microsoft](https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2024/06/02/russia-cyber-bots-disinformation-2024-paris-olympics/) and the [Institute for Strategic Dialogue](https://www.isdglobal.org/digital_dispatches/stolen-voices-russia-aligned-operation-manipulates-audio-and-images-to-impersonate-experts/). The campaign disseminates false narratives by impersonating media outlets with the apparent aim of sowing division in democratic countries. While the campaign targets audiences around the world, [including in the US](https://www.recordedfuture.com/research/operation-overload-impersonates-media-influence-2024-us-election), its main target has been Ukraine. Hundreds of AI-manipulated videos from the campaign have tried to fuel pro-Russian narratives.

    Read more: [https://www.wired.com/story/pro-russia-disinformation-campaign-free-ai-tools/](https://www.wired.com/story/pro-russia-disinformation-campaign-free-ai-tools/)

  2. Good luck protecting and advocating for free speech when a state knows to hack free speech

  3. When historians look back on this era they will find it exasperating we did so little to control foreign propaganda and misinformation

    You should have to upload photo ID to use all social media and post under your real name

  4. > The researchers pointed out that while Bluesky had suspended 65 percent of the fake accounts, “X has taken minimal action despite numerous reports on the operation and growing evidence for coordination.”

  5. For every legitimate document floating around on the internet, there will be hundreds or thousands of bogus versions – bogons.

    Artificial Inanity systems will flood us with slop until we won’t be able to tell the difference between fact and fiction.

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