They speak Portuguese, but they are AI bots. Spread messages against Ukraine and support for the Chinese regime. They are thousands and the scheme already has a name: “Portubots”.
“The idea is to try to convince Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine not existed or promoting narratives to support the Communist Party of China,” says Tuvia Gering, an analyst at Planet9, Ao.
In all, the Israelite company has already identified 2,158 false profileswho use Portuguese names such as “António”, “Carla” or “Bruna”, but who present incongruities in the descriptions, often “errors” of IA, such as saying they are natural of “Guilherme do Sul”. Where these profiles are most propagated to the competing social network of the X of Elon Musk, the Bluesky. They called them “Portubots”.
Use Russian popular expressions, translated to the letter to Portuguese, which may also seem quite strange, as “Nationalist Battalions”expression used “by the Russian state media and employees to portray certain Ukrainian military units such as extremists or neo -Nazis in order to justify Russia’s illegal invasion,” explains Gering.
“There are indicators that they are state actors At the origin of these accounts based on the narratives they promote and with the terms used in the messages they propagate, ”explains the investigator.
Some even use layouts of international newspapers, such as Al Jazeera, to write false news about, for example, US criticism of Ukraine.
“False citations of credible news agencies are a consistent tactic” in Russian influence operations that there are records, the researchers explain.
“In creating this benign network Or not related, they are trying to increase their visibility and influence, so that when they need to take action, they can do so more effectively, ”says the expert.
“It is another indication that actors may be linked to Kremlin or Beijing, because one of the reasons why a state would use the Portuguese language would be to overshadow And the intentions of that publication, ”he explains.
Rami Ben Efraim CEO of Planet9 projects a danger scenario for the future. “Looking to the future, the situation can get worse significantly. The content generated by AI, amplified by social networks, is already considered one of the ten largest global risks. ”
This is because “today, the evolution of the AI puts disinformation On a completely different scale, growing exponentially before our eyes. If there is no coordinated response, all democratic processes – from elections to public policies – will be vulnerable to external interference. ”
