A TikTok video by actor Brian Baumgartner, from the American version of The officeThe call 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 line of American celebrities addressing Maia Sandu, the current pro-European president of Moldova, 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 investigators suggested were part of a pro-Kremlin influence operation – were made in Cameo, the app that lets anyone buy personalized greetings from celebrities. Neither Cameo nor Baumgartner's representatives responded to WIRED's request for comment.
Moldova – a country comparable in size to the US state of Maryland, sandwiched between the EU and Ukraine – has been complaining about Russian interference for years. But more recently, as this former Soviet state prepares for a crucial presidential vote and referendum on whether to join the EU, the country has become a cautionary tale of how the world's largest social media platforms can be exploited to to create and finance a complex disinformation operation. that sows discord around some of society's most divisive topics.
Since war broke out in neighboring Ukraine two years ago, bots have been scouring the Moldovan internet, looking for authentic content to reach a wide audience, such as videos of Ukrainian refugees behaving badly. Then, ordinary Moldovans complained that their Facebook feeds were flooded with political, often anti-government ads, launched by pages with Vietnamese names. A year later, researchers estimated that Meta had made at least $200,000 from a pro-Kremlin ad campaign that targeted only Moldova. The Russian Foreign Ministry did not respond to WIRED's request for comment.
“It is unprecedented in complexity,” said Ana Revenco, Moldova's former interior minister, now in charge of the country's new Center for Strategic Communications and Combating Disinformation. According to her, what is happening in Moldova on Facebook, Telegram, TikTok and YouTube is a warning to 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 anywhere.
Ahead of Sunday's vote, accounts linked to Russia have reached new levels of aggression, Revenco said. “They activate accounts that were created a long time ago and have been on standby,” she explains. “They use bots and sync messages across multiple platforms.”
