Securing Democracy Dispatch

We are hiring! Applications are open for ASD at GMF’s Washington, DC-based research traineeship for Fall 2024! Apply here.

Russia’s recent campaign of sabotage and, in some cases, violence on the European continent signal a brazen and increasingly volatile form of hybrid warfare that threatens to further strain European security services and heighten societal instability, Research Analyst Etienne Soula wrote.

Russian diplomats and state media focused on two main narratives this week:

• Venezuelan Election: Venezuela was among the 10 most mentioned countries by monitored Russian state media and diplomatic accounts on most platforms last week, with most of those posts validating President Nicolás Maduro’s claims of victory in the country’s disputed presidential election. Widely cited evidence of election irregularities were dismissed, with the Kremlin claiming that the opposition should “humble itself and congratulate Maduro”. Russian state media also amplified Maduro’s allegations of “foreign meddling”, with many outlets warning of a looming “color revolution” in the country.
• Olympics: Russian state media took every opportunity last week to criticize the Summer Olympics in Paris, trashing the food in the Olympic village, the queues to enter venues, and the cost. Particular ire was reserved for the controversial opening ceremony, which was labeled a “disgrace”, a “display of defective mutants”, “LGBTQ propaganda”, a “shameful freak show”, and indicative of the “perversions of the French Republic”. State-controlled media also blasted the absence of the Russian team at the Games (due, it failed to mention, to repeated doping scandals) as “shameful”, an act of “paranoia”, and “blasphem[ous]”.

The People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) diplomats and state media focused on two main narratives this week: 

• Olympics: PRC-affiliated accounts devoted overwhelming attention to the Olympics, with phrases related to the Olympics topping the most-mentioned chart on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube in the last week. Coverage largely called attention to China’s athletic prowess and medal wins, but a few PRC propagandists also highlighted Chinese technology powering the games and criticized the host city. Unsurprisingly, PRC-affiliated accounts mostly ignored allegations that PRC authorities covered-up for failed drug tests by two Chinese swimmers by claiming they ingested contaminated food.
• US-Japan Alliance: Carrying on with last week, PRC-affiliated accounts continued to lambast Japan after nuclear security talks between Washington and Tokyo on Sunday.  Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lin Jian criticized Japan for clinging to “Cold War” thinking, and implied Japan was two-faced for pursuing nuclear protection as a past “victim” of an atomic attack. PRC propagandists accused Japan and the United States of “pursuing a selfish agenda” at the risk of “destabilizing” the Asia Pacific, suggested that the United States is turning Japan into “NATO’s next outpost,” and highlighted protests in Tokyo against the security talks.

Foreign adversaries sharpen strategies to influence 2024 US election: The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) warned that Russia, the PRC, and Iran are sharpening their influence strategies to interfere in the 2024 US presidential election, including by leveraging commercial marketing and technology firms and relying on witting and unwitting Americans to promote and add credence to narratives that support their interests; the ODNI also notes that the PRC does not appear interested in influencing the presidential election, but could try to influence down-ballot races. Senior Fellow Bret Schafer told the Dispatch, “The intelligence community’s findings are consistent with past reports and very much aligned with what we’re seeing in the open. As the report notes, Moscow is undoubtedly the predominant threat, but the spiraling conflict in the Middle East provides both an opening and an incentive for Tehran to interfere in this election cycle. Importantly, the report also confirms the importance of genuine Americans in the furtherance of foreign influence campaigns, which speaks to the difficulty of attributing influence operations to a foreign source.”

X’s AI chatbot produces misleading information about 2024 ballot deadlines: The Minnesota secretary of state’s office said it received “the equivalent of a shoulder shrug” from X officials after informing them that the site’s artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, Grok, erroneously claimed or insinuated that a host of states’ 2024 presidential election ballot deadlines had passed, citing X users and offering no warning about potential election misinformation. Co-Managing Director Rachael Dean Wilson said, “This is an example of generative AI exacerbating the well-established problem of false information regarding the administration of elections. Companies deploying AI have a responsibility to ensure that it is giving accurate information, particularly when it comes to the nuts and bolts of elections. Additionally, consumers of information must bring a healthy skepticism to answers generated by AI chatbots—they can be improved but not likely made foolproof.” 

In Case You Missed It

• X’s owner Elon Musk reposted an AI-altered campaign video of US Vice President Kamala Harris that received over 98 million views, appearing to violate his platform’s policies on “misleading media”.
• Hungary eased Russian and Belarusian citizens’ ability to obtain a visa to visit and work in the country without a security clearance, raising concerns that this could ease Russia’s ongoing espionage efforts across the Schengen area.
• Two US agencies warned that distributed-denial-of-service cyberattacks on election infrastructure could hinder public access to election information but would not threaten the security of election processes.
• Iran is conducting covert influence operations on social media to undercut former US President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, according to US intelligence officials.
• A UK privacy watchdog blamed poor cyber hygiene at the country’s electoral commission for a 2021 cyberattack in which a PRC-linked hacker group accessed nearly 40 million citizens’ personal information.

“The concern I would have, hypothetically, is let’s say we’re coming into late October, getting close to Halloween, and suddenly, there’s an AI-generated image of me that looks very similar to me that says, ‘Hey, due to the high voter turnout, we’re asking everybody that’s 60 and older to please vote on Wednesday.’ Well that’s the population that may actually believe that. … I would say the bigger threats will be in the next cycle, in 2026 and 2028. AI is still a very new technology, and for those who want to use it for nefarious purposes, this is kind of a trial run.”

—Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab, during an interview with the Record published on July 25.

The views expressed in GMF publications and commentary are the views of the author alone.