White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre suggested that the Russians might be utilizing online bot-farms to spread damaging debate videos and help former President Donald Trump’s campaign.
Jean-Pierre encouraged the speculation after a reporter’s question on Tuesday during a media briefing.
“Do you have any concerns right now that this is the leading edge of any part of a Russian effort to interfere in the election? Has the president been briefed on this?” the reporter asked. “Have you seen any evidence that the Russians or other foreign powers have tried to seize on the debate performance and repeat some of the president’s most embarrassing moments?”
“So, that’s a very good question,” she responds.
{snip}
“AI has always been a concern, that’s why the president made some announcements recently to take executive action on how we can deal with AI,” she concluded. “We want to see more fulsome action legislatively from Congress.”
Also on Tuesday, the Department of Justice announced that it had disrupted an online bot farm sponsored by the Russian government that was spreading disinformation on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
“Today’s actions represent a first in disrupting a Russian-sponsored Generative AI-enhanced social media bot farm,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray.
The statement said that Russian intelligence had access to a “social media bot farm” with more than 1,000 accounts that pretended to be U.S. citizens.
{snip}
Critics of the White House criticized the attempt to connect embarrassing debate videos to a Russian disinformation campaign.
“This question may sound ridiculous now, but it will pale in comparison to the inevitable push by the mainstream media to actually blame Putin for Biden’s rapid cognitive decline,” read one response.
“They’re going to blame Biden’s debate performance on Russia. You can’t make this stuff up,” read another reply.
“So, clips of the debate will be regarded as Russian propaganda? One trick pony,” another user said.
* Original Article:
https://www.theblaze.com/news/russian-bots-biden-debate-twitter
