US Disrupts Russian Bots Spreading Propaganda on Twitter

US investigators have discovered a Russian state-owned media outlet using a “bot farm” to spread propaganda on Twitter/X. 

On Tuesday, the Justice Department accused Russian media outlet RT of running the bot farm to pump out disinformation via 968 Twitter accounts. 

Federal investigators allege that an unnamed deputy editor-in-chief at RT led development of the bot farm’s software, dubbed Meliorator. “As planned, the social media bot farm would create fictitious online personas for social media accounts, through which RT, or any operator of the bot farm, could distribute information on a wide-scale basis,” the DOJ says. 

US investigators also claim that an officer from the Kremlin’s Federal Security Service oversaw the bot farm, which is designed to help the Russian government covertly circulate disinformation. It produced hundreds of fake accounts on Twitter, which also use AI-generated images of people for profile photos. 

The fake accounts pretended to be US citizens while posting content in support of the Russian government, including justifying the country’s actions in Ukraine and Europe by sharing videos of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

RT allegedly created the fake user accounts by using US-based domain name registrar Namecheap to buy two domain names, MLRTR.com and OTANMAIL.com. “They then used those domains to create the email servers that ultimately allowed them to create fictitious social media accounts using the bot farm software,” the DOJ says. 

According to court documents, the FBI learned of the bot farm through another unnamed US agency, which spotted RT developing the bot farm’s software. An ensuing investigation of the email address used to register the Namecheap domains revealed a Gmail address and IP address that tied back to Moscow. 

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In response, federal agents seized the 968 Twitter accounts and took over the two domain names. In addition, the Justice Department says X has since “voluntarily suspended the remaining bot accounts identified in the court documents for terms of service violations.” 

RT isn’t necessarily denying the bot farming allegations. The Russian media outlet tells PCMag: “Farming is a beloved pastime for millions of Russians.”

To prevent a repeat, the US has issued a security advisory on the techniques RT allegedly used to run the bot farm. “Additional analysis suggests the software’s functionality would likely be expanded to other social media networks,” the report warns.