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DOJ: Close to 1,000 searched bot accounts part of organized effort to spread Russian propaganda

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On Tuesday, the DOJ announced that it searched nearly a thousand social media accounts and seized two online domain names.

The National Security Cyber Section and U.S. Attorney’s Offices in Arizona and Illinois are handling the case.

The yearslong investigation uncovered 968 total accounts it says were used by Russian actors to create a disinformation-spreading bot farm. It claims that the bots were enhanced by AI to better pose as American users while posting content supportive of Russian government objectives.

Alongside international partners in Europe and Canada, the FBI has released a joint cybersecurity advisory on the technology behind the bot farm. Hopefully, they say, the information will help platforms and researchers prevent similar ones.

According to the DOJ, the social media platform X voluntarily suspended bot accounts identified in court documents for violating its terms of service.

Kirsten Dorman is a field correspondent at KJZZ. Born and raised in New Jersey, Dorman fell in love with audio storytelling as a freshman at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in 2019.