U.S. officials say Russia is exploiting ignorant Americans to spread election disinformation.
WASHINGTON: The Kremlin is relying on unwitting Americans and Russian commercial PR firms to spread disinformation about the U.S. presidential election, senior intelligence officials said Monday, detailing the latest effort by U.S. adversaries to manipulate public opinion ahead of the 2024 election.
The warning comes after weeks of turbulent political life in the United States that have forced Russia, Iran and China to change some of the details of their propaganda operations. What hasn’t changed, intelligence officials say, is the countries’ determination to spread false and inflammatory claims about American democracy online in an effort to undermine confidence in elections.
“The American people need to be aware that content they read online, especially on social media, could be foreign propaganda, even if it appears to be from Americans or originating in the United States,” an official in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence told reporters on condition of anonymity in accordance with rules set by the director’s office.
Authorities said Russia remained the biggest threat to spreading election disinformation, there were signs Iran was expanding its efforts and China was taking a cautious approach as it headed into 2024.
Kremlin-linked groups are increasingly hiring marketing and communications firms based in Russia to outsource some of their digital propaganda work and hide their tracks, officials said in a press briefing.
Two such companies were targeted by new U.S. sanctions announced in March, which authorities say created fake websites and social media profiles to spread Kremlin disinformation.
Misinformation can focus on candidates or voting, or on issues already controversial in the United States, such as immigration, crime, or the war in Gaza.
But the ultimate goal is to get Americans to spread Russian disinformation without questioning its source. People are much more likely to trust and repost information they believe comes from a domestic source, officials said. Fake websites designed to mimic U.S. news outlets and AI-generated social media profiles are just two of the ways in which they do so.
In some cases, Americans, American tech companies and media outlets have deliberately amplified and parroted the Kremlin’s messages.
“Foreign influence actors are getting better at covering their tracks and getting Americans to do the same,” said the official, who spoke alongside FBI and Homeland Security officials.
Senator Mark Warner, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said last month that he was concerned the U.S. may be more vulnerable to foreign disinformation this year than it was before the 2020 election. He said Monday that intelligence community warnings show that U.S. elections are being “targeted by bad actors around the world.”
“It is also troubling because it highlights the extent to which foreign actors, particularly Russia, rely on both ignorant and intelligent Americans to promote foreign-related narratives within the United States,” Warner, a Virginia Democrat, said in a statement.
As a measure of the threat, officials who track foreign disinformation say they have issued twice as many warnings to political candidates, government leaders, campaign offices and others targeted by foreign groups so far in the 2024 election cycle as they did in the 2022 election cycle.
Officials would not say how many alerts were issued or who received them, but they said the significant increase reflects both heightened interest from U.S. adversaries in the election and increased government efforts to identify and warn of such threats.
Warnings are provided so that targets can take action to protect themselves and correct the facts if necessary.
Russia and other countries have also been quick to shift gears to exploit recent events in the presidential election, including the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the race to support Vice President Kamala Harris.
For example, after the attack on Trump, Russian disinformation agencies quickly spread claims that Democratic investigations had led to the shootings, and even unfounded conspiracy theories that Biden or the Ukrainian government had orchestrated the effort.
“These pro-Russian voices sought to link the assassination attempt to Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine,” concluded the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Lab, which tracks Russian disinformation.
Intelligence officials have previously determined that Russian propaganda appeared designed to support Trump, and officials said Monday that assessment had not changed.
Declining support for Ukraine is a top Russian disinformation target, and President Trump has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin in the past and support for NATO is seen as low.
While China waged a wide-ranging disinformation campaign before Taiwan’s recent election, it has been much more cautious with the U.S. Beijing could use disinformation to target legislative elections or lower-level primaries where candidates have expressed strong views against China. But China is not expected to try to influence the presidential election, officials said Monday.
China's Ambassador to the United States Xie Feng said on Monday that Beijing has no intention of interfering in American politics.
But Iran has taken a more aggressive stance. Earlier this month, Director of National Intelligence Avril Hines said the Iranian government had been covertly supporting protests in Gaza by the United States against Israel’s war with Hamas. Hines said Iran-linked groups had posed as online activists, encouraged the protests, and provided financial support to some of the protest groups.
Iran opposes a candidate who would likely escalate tensions with Tehran, officials said. That explanation fits with the Trump administration, which has ordered the end of the Iran nuclear deal, reimposed sanctions and killed Iran’s top general.
Messages left with representatives of the Russian and Iranian governments were not immediately returned Monday.
