Foreign actors from China, Nigeria, Iran and Vietnam used AI-generated content and automation tools to create thousands of misleading political videos on TikTok targeting the 2024 US presidential election, spreading misinformation to millions of users.
The Wall Street Journal identified 91 TikTok accounts operated by foreign actors from China, Nigeria, Iran and Vietnam that created over 3,000 videos containing political misinformation about the 2024 US presidential election. These accounts used AI-generated voices, automated content creation tools, and TikTok's algorithm to spread false information about political candidates, particularly targeting Donald Trump. The accounts posted videos with identical AI-generated scripts using phrases like 'Old Donnie' and copied content from legitimate sources like MeidasTouch. TikTok's algorithm served these videos to nearly all of the Journal's automated test accounts, sometimes within hours of setup. The videos received over 2.5 million likes and 300,000 comments. Some accounts were motivated by profit through TikTok's creator rewards program, potentially earning around $10,000 from Vietnam-based operations. TikTok removed close to half of the 91 accounts before being contacted by the Journal and continued removing accounts after being flagged, but similar accounts kept appearing. The company confirmed through internal investigation that the accounts belonged to operations from the four identified countries.
Domain classification, causal taxonomy, severity scores, and national security assessments were LLM-classified and may contain errors.
Using AI systems to conduct large-scale disinformation campaigns, malicious surveillance, or targeted and sophisticated automated censorship and propaganda, with the aim of manipulating political processes, public opinion, and behavior.
Human
Due to a decision or action made by humans
Intentional
Due to an expected outcome from pursuing a goal
Post-deployment
Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed