The Disinformation Warning Coming From the Edge of Europe

A TikTok video of actor Brian Baumgartner, from the American version of The Office, calling for the overthrow of the president of a small European country was an early sign that this would be no ordinary election.

Late last year, Baumgartner appeared among a lineup of American celebrities addressing Maia Sandu, the current, pro-European president of Moldova and proclaiming in bad Russian: “We, Hollywood stars, support the people of Moldova in their desire to overthrow you, Sandu.” These weren’t deepfakes. Instead the videos—which researchers suggested were part of a pro-Kremlin influence operation—were commissioned on Cameo, the app that lets anyone buy personalized greetings from celebrities. Neither Cameo nor Baumgartner’s representatives replied to WIRED’s request for comment.

For years, Moldova—a country similar in size to the US state of Maryland, sandwiched between the EU and Ukraine—has complained of Russian meddling. But more recently, as this former Soviet state prepares for a pivotal presidential vote and referendum on whether to join the EU, the country has become a cautionary tale about how the world’s biggest social media platforms can be exploited to create and fund a complex disinformation operation that sows discord around some of a society’s most divisive subjects.

Since war broke out in neighboring Ukraine two years ago, bots have been scouring the Moldovan internet, searching for authentic content to boost to wide audiences, such as videos of Ukrainian-refugees behaving badly. Then ordinary Moldovans complained their Facebook feeds were being inundated with political, often anti-government ads launched by pages with Vietnamese names. A year later, researchers estimated Meta had earned at least $200,000 from a pro-Kremlin ad campaign targeting Moldova alone. Russia’s foreign ministry did not reply to WIRED’s request to comment.

“It’s unprecedented in terms of complexity,” says Ana Revenco, Moldova’s former interior minister, now in charge of the country’s new Center for Strategic Communication and Combating Disinformation. What’s happening in Moldova on Facebook, Telegram, TikTok, and YouTube, she believes, carries a warning for the rest of the world. “This shows us our collective vulnerability,” she says. “Platforms are not only active here. If [Russia] can use them here, they can use them everywhere.”

Ahead of the vote on Sunday, accounts linked to Russia have reached new levels of aggression, Revenco says. “They activate accounts that have been created long ago and have been on standby,” she explains. “They are engaging bots, and they’re synchronizing posts across multiple platforms.”

The EU referendum is a pivotal moment for Moldova. On Sunday, voters will face a yes or no choice on whether their country should enshrine its intention to eventually join the EU in its constitution and allow President Sandu to seek closer ties with the bloc, a move prompted by the war in Ukraine. A yes vote “would create the legal guarantee for the country to move towards the European Union, irrespective of governments in the future,” says Iulian Groza, executive director of the Institute for European Policies and Reforms, a nonprofit that wants to accelerate Moldova’s integration into Europe.

Polls suggest 55 percent of Moldovans support joining the EU. But more than one-third of eligible voters must turn up at the polling stations for the vote to be valid. That means pro-Kremlin forces in the country are encouraging people not to vote at all on Sunday, says Groza. “Those who campaign to boycott the vote, basically campaign for the referendum not to pass.”

Revenco believes there is evidence that Russia is behind the disorientating amount of online activity. “Police investigations throughout the last two years clearly saw the connection with the organized criminal groups, including those who are on the international sanctions list,” she says. “This investigation traces their connections indeed to Russia, including the military ecosystem, banking ecosystem, and financial, including those banks that are also on the international sanctions list.”

In October, police announced the seizure of piles of cash and mobile phones they linked to organizations associated with Ilan Shor, a fugitive Moldovan oligarch, living in exile in Russia. Police said these affiliates were preparing to organize vote-buying through Telegram—an allegation Shor called an “absurd spectacle.” On Telegram, bots have been offering up to $280 to people who post on Facebook against joining the EU. “They are outsourcing disinformation,” says Victoria Olari, research assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, who is based in Moldova’s capital, Chișinău. “They’re being paid to make posts for their friends, for their close circle of people.”

Olari described the Telegram bot as an example of how brazen Russia had become in Moldova. "This is the first time Russia is not hiding anymore; they are doing this openly,” she says. Government officials claim Russia spent around €50 million ($54.3 million) on election interference last year, with the amount expected to more than double by the end of 2024, according to Revenco.

Revenco says her team has been trying to reach out to social media platforms about the problems. “Communication is much better than, let’s say, one year ago.” Yet there is still room for the platforms to do much more, she says.

The narratives she sees circulating are designed to increase anti-EU sentiment, pro-Russia sentiment, but also anti-Ukrainian sentiment, she adds. “AI is used in order to multiply the messages and reach out to a greater audience in a short time.” Revenco did not provide specific examples, but a deepfake video featuring President Sandu has been circulating on Telegram, according to think tank Watchdog MD, even as the polls suggest Sandu will be reelected this weekend.

Earlier this month, Meta said it had removed Facebook and Instagram accounts centered around a dozen fictitious, Russian-language news brands. The fake accounts behind this activity posted original content, including cartoons and criticism of President Sandu, Meta said in a statement. “The operators also posted about offering money and giveaways, including food and concert tickets, if people in Moldova would follow them on social media or make graffiti with the campaign’s brand names.” Telegram, TikTok parent Bytedance, and YouTube parent Alphabet did not respond to WIRED’s questions about the steps they’d taken to limit disinformation in Moldova ahead of the vote.

Although Telegram did remove accounts linked to Shor earlier this month, at the authorities’ request, Revenco does not seem impressed by the platforms’ efforts overall. “The fact that [disinformation] continues to be present and very creative in terms of using various capabilities of these networks once again proves that the efforts undertaken so far are not sufficient.”