The Times: Investigation of Bot Farms Targeting the Royal Family

A recent report by The Times provides a comprehensive examination of a sophisticated fake news campaign targeting the British royal family. The investigation highlights how foreign bot farms and artificial intelligence are being deployed in schemes designed to destabilise the monarchy through orchestrated misinformation.

The Scope of the Misinformation

In the weeks preceding the King’s state visit to the United States with the Queen, thousands of posts seemingly from Maga-style social media profiles falsely claimed he had secretly converted to Islam. This narrative was bolstered by lifelike AI-generated imagery, including one picture that depicted Charles kneeling on a prayer mat.

Fabricated claims also targeted the Prince and Princess of Wales through computer-generated images of their children. Some of these manipulated images depicted the children meeting their late grandmother, Princess Diana, who died before they were born, while others shared supposed reports of a fourth child for William and Kate.

Uncovering the Networks

Research from Valent, which tracks and responds to online manipulation for both public and private sectors, was central to identifying the source of these operations. Our analysts discovered that a hostile narrative alleging the King had “betrayed Britain and Christianity” began on March 12. Tracking software analysis revealed that these accounts originated in southeast Asian bot farms, specifically in Vietnam, where operations are run in exchange for cryptocurrency.

Two automated Facebook accounts based in Vietnam appeared instrumental in spreading the narrative. Following this, networks consisting of thousands of automated accounts were used to consistently reach six million people in the UK who regularly consume their output. Valent’s research noted that these messages were disseminated on a network typically used to promote hard-right actors.

While the exact individuals or organisations ordering these campaigns are difficult to pinpoint due to cryptocurrency payments spanning multiple jurisdictions, it is suspected the operations were funded by a third party, possibly Russia. Valent’s chief executive, Amil Khan, explained that there has been a noticeable shift from traditional Russian and Chinese networks operating fake accounts to for-profit bot farms operating on their behalf.

Highlighting the complexity of attribution, Khan told The Times:

“It’s wild out there. It’s very rare that you will be able to say which person was paying for this particular campaign because the payments are made via cryptocurrency through six or seven jurisdictions and entities. So it’s very difficult to say exactly if it was that person related to that political party or that organisation. That said, you can definitely see patterns and you can see certain campaigns that are intentional; they build up, keep going for a couple of weeks and then die down.”

The Role of Artificial Intelligence

The investigation underscores the growing risks associated with artificial intelligence and digital manipulation. An Anthropic report cited in the article revealed that sophisticated operations use AI models, such as Claude, to construct networks of fake profiles and entire news sites. These platforms are then leveraged to publish deceptive content while entirely concealing the entities behind the operations. As Ciaran Martin, former head of Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre, stated, evidence from the AI companies themselves demonstrates that new AI services are making these online information operations more common.