BOSTON — The Boston Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) sent out a warning on Monday about foreign influence and disinformation campaigns on social media ahead of the November Presidential Election.
According to Joe Bonavolonta, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Boston Division, foreign adversaries including Russia, China, and Iran are trying to undermine confidence in democracy by spreading misinformation through social media platforms such as Facebook.
“They’re just trying to create and greatly amplify pre-existing rifts or issues within our society,” explained Special Agent Bonavolonta.
He went on to say that foreign adversaries are creating fake content in order to manipulate people’s political bias, hoping users will share it without verifying its accuracy.
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According to Bonavolonta, targeting current social issues is a way for foreign adversaries to further provoke and divide Americans.
“To try to make the American citizens think that there is something fundamentally wrong with the democratic process in the country,” he said, “which is as we all know is not true. But that is what our foreign adversaries, that’s the narrative and the picture that they try to create.”
According to a release from the FBI sent out on Monday, there are three common foreign influence methods:
- Cyberattacks against political campaigns and government infrastructure: These attacks might include foreign adversaries hacking and leaking sensitive information from computers, databases, networks, phones, and emails.
- Secret funding or influence operations to help or harm a person or cause: Tactics include political advertising from foreign groups pretending to be U.S. citizens, lobbying by unregistered foreign agents, and illegal campaign contributions from foreign adversaries.
- Disinformation campaigns on social media platforms that confuse, trick, or upset the public: For example, a foreign group may purposefully spread false or inconsistent information about an existing social issue to provoke all sides and encourage conflict.
In 2017, the FBI created a Foreign Influence Task Force and began partnering with social media companies to flag dangerous foreign accounts.
Still, Bonavolonta said that every person must do their part by only sharing content from trusted sources, verifying that accounts are who they say they are, and fact-checking information before sharing it. “Everybody should really be doing their due diligence in terms of what it is they’re ingesting, what it is they may be disseminating, so they can be sure that it’s accurate to the best of their knowledge."
The FBI released the following tips for the public on how to identify and report misleading and potentially dangerous content:
What the Public Can Do
- Seek out information from trustworthy sources, verify who produced the content, and consider their intent: Ask yourself “Where did the information you are reading come from?” and “Who are you talking to online?” Know the origin of information, including the ideology and motivation of the source, and seek out multiple sources to make informed judgments. Be aware of your own assumptions and biases, and how a foreign adversary may choose to manipulate them. Foreign adversaries seek to deepen divisions in the United States, and they may be counting on you to forward information you don’t know to be accurate.
- Be aware of social media deception: Social media provides our adversaries with a way to connect with them easily and anonymously, so users should know their contacts and followers before forming a relationship with them virtually.
- Rely on state and local government election officials: Before election day, ensure the information you receive about your ballot, polling location, or other general information are sourced to official government websites.
- Beware of “deep fakes”: Emerging technology used to generate “deep fakes”—advanced synthetic audio and video generated through artificial intelligence—may mimic authentic communications in a manner that is hard to detect and to counter. “Deep fakes” may be able to elicit a range of responses that can compromise election security. The FBI has been working with the private sector to get ahead of this issue.
- Report suspicious activity to social media platforms: Many social media platforms provide users a means to report suspicious behavior/content. Check the respective site for reporting procedures.
- Report suspicious activity to the FBI. If you have information about allegations of election crime or voter fraud call the FBI Boston Division at 857-386-2000 or email to tips.fbi.gov.
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