US DOJ says it disrupted Russian social media influence operation

The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) has disrupted a Russian operation that used fake social media accounts enhanced by artificial intelligence to covertly spread pro-Kremlin messages in the US and abroad, it said.

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

The DOJ secured court approval to seize two domain names and search nearly 1,000 social media accounts allegedly associated with the effort.

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