Foreign Malign Influence

If you think you have been a victim of or have information about foreign malign influence activity, please let us know.

Report foreign malign influence activity to the FBI

• Featured Resources and Information
• Overview of the Department of Justice’s Strategic Principles for Engaging with Social Media Companies to Combat Foreign Malign Influence Targeting U.S. Elections
• Principles
  • Sharing FMI Threat Information with SMCs Is Critical to the Department’s Mission
  • The Department’s Engagement with SMCs Is Protective of First Amendment Rights
  • Strategic Prong 1: Real-Time Sharing of Actionable Intelligence with SMCs
  • Strategic Prong 2: Meetings with SMCs to Discuss Potential FMI Threats
  • The Department’s Engagement with SMCs Is Nationwide
  • The Department’s Strategy Is Constantly Evolving and Adapting to Match the Threat
  • Transparency Is a Core Component of the Department’s Work Combating FMI

Featured Resources and Information

• FBI: Providing Foreign Malign Influence Threat Information to Social Media Platforms

• FBI: Combating Foreign Influence 

• OIG: DOJ Response to the Evaluation of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Efforts to Coordinate Information Sharing About Foreign Malign Influence Threats to U.S. Elections

• DOJ: Remarks by Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco on Foreign Malign Influence at the 2024 American Bar Association General Assembly (August 2, 2024)

  • Remarks as Prepared for Delivery

  • Video

Remote video URL

Overview of the Department of Justice’s Strategic Principles for Engaging with Social Media Companies to Combat Foreign Malign Influence Targeting U.S. Elections

Introduction

• Protecting the integrity of U.S. elections is a critical component of the overall mission of the Department of Justice (Department) to uphold the rule of law, keep our country safe, and protect civil rights.

• Our republic depends on the operation of a free and fair electoral process – with results that are respected and with elections that are free from foreign interference.

• Foreign malign influence (FMI) [Endnote 1] is not a new problem – but today’s complex geopolitical environment, and the anonymity and access that our interconnected world offers, have changed the nature of the threat and how we must address it.

• As the U.S. Intelligence Community has publicly reported, a primary goal of FMI actors is to sow discord and undermine confidence in our democratic institutions and values – including through covertly influencing and manipulating our elections. These threat actors seek to influence the politics and policies of the United States to benefit their interests and undermine U.S. democracy and America’s standing in the world. [Endnote 2]

• In today’s age, FMI actors are conducting their operations in large part through the misuse of online social media platforms – which are tremendous sources of free speech and creativity. These online FMI operations take many forms – false personas, fabricated and divisive narratives, and synthetic content disseminated through technology like deepfakes fueled by artificial intelligence (AI). If unchecked, FMI can take root and spread across these platforms.

• The Department will not tolerate FMI of any form, particularly FMI targeting our elections. The Department, working together with our partners across the U.S. Government, is committed to detecting, investigating, exposing, and holding accountable those who perpetrate FMI operations.

• Online FMI operations leveraging social media platforms can be more likely to succeed if the social media companies (SMCs) whose platforms are being misused are unaware that a foreign malign actor is behind the activity. Accordingly, an important component of the Department’s multi-faceted strategy for combating FMI is engaging with SMCs and sharing information with them about FMI threats, so the SMCs may consider taking their own independent actions to help mitigate these threats. [Endnote 3]

• Below, we provide an overview of some of the overarching principles of our strategy for engaging with SMCs to share information and combat FMI threats. We are setting forth these principles publicly because we recognize that transparency about how we conduct this work is just as important as the work itself – including how we ensure that First Amendment rights are fully protected as we carry out this work. [Endnote 4] 

Principles

Sharing FMI Threat Information with SMCs Is Critical to the Department’s Mission

• FMI threat actors are increasingly leveraging online platforms to conduct their FMI operations, including operations targeting our elections.

• It is therefore critical to the Department’s national security mission to share FMI threat information with SMCs, so they can make decisions, within their discretion, about how to mitigate potential abuse of their platforms by adversaries conducting FMI operations. 

• The Department engages with SMCs regarding FMI principally through the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), [Endnote 5] which is dedicated to identifying and counteracting FMI operations targeting our democratic institutions, with a specific focus on securing our elections against foreign interference. While the FITF leads the Department’s engagement with SMCs regarding FMI, the strategic principles set forth herein apply to all Department components.

• The Department is committed, through the FITF, to establishing and maintaining an effective dialogue with SMCs to facilitate combating FMI threats to our elections.

• Through the FITF, the Department is sharing and will continue to share actionable intelligence in real-time with SMCs about FMI actors and operations leveraging their services, so the SMCs can use that information, if they choose to do so within their discretion, to mitigate FMI threats on their platforms.   

The Department’s Engagement with SMCs Is Protective of First Amendment Rights

• The online platforms that FMI threat actors are abusing are important vehicles for free expression protected by the First Amendment.

• It is therefore critical that when we engage with SMCs to combat FMI threats, we do so in a way that is entirely consistent with the First Amendment.  As we work to counter those who seek to exploit online platforms and undermine our democracy, we must – and will – preserve the very freedoms at the core of that democracy.

• Most fundamentally, when the Department shares FMI threat information with SMCs, it is entirely up to the companies whether to take any action, such as removing content or barring users, based on the shared information. SMCs are free to make their own choices about what, if anything, they will do in response to information they have received from the Department, and no adverse consequences for the companies will result from whatever action they may or may not take.  Accordingly, Department personnel should never seek to coerce SMCs to take any action based on information shared with the SMCs.

Strategic Prong 1: Real-Time Sharing of Actionable Intelligence with SMCs

• Broadly speaking, there are two primary prongs of the Department’s strategic approach to sharing FMI threat information with SMCs.

• The first strategic prong involves the Department sharing information with SMCs about specific accounts on their platforms linked to FMI activity. The Department provides such actionable intelligence to SMCs on a continuous basis. Specifically, when the Department obtains information, including from the U.S. Intelligence Community, relating to FMI actors leveraging particular online platforms, the Department – through the FITF – promptly shares actionable intelligence concerning the online accounts linked to the activity with the SMCs hosting the relevant platforms.

• The Department’s information-sharing strategy is actor-driven. The FITF acts on intelligence concerning the FMI activities of foreign actors and the online accounts those actors use to conduct their operations. Our focus is on disrupting the foreign actors behind the accounts and exposing their hidden hand.

• This strategic approach combats FMI threats in multiple important ways, including by (a) enabling SMCs to remove or otherwise regulate the accounts and content at issue, to the extent the companies elect to do so, and (b) facilitating the gathering of additional relevant information about the accounts involved, including pursuant to legal process that the FBI may serve on the companies.

• The Department, through the FITF, shares FMI threat information pursuant to Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) first implemented in February 2024. [Endnote 6] The SOP govern instances where Department personnel seek to share information with SMCs regarding specific activities or accounts relating to FMI.

• As reflected in the SOP, the Department, through the FITF, shares information with SMCs regarding account activity relating to FMI when there are specific, credible, and articulable facts that provide high confidence for assessing that the activity is being conducted covertly by, on behalf of, or pursuant to instruction from a foreign government, foreign actor, or their proxy, in support of an FMI operation. 

• To ensure that any applicable First Amendment rights are protected, when sharing such FMI threat information with SMCs, the Department’s communications with the company should make clear, among other things, that (a) we are not asking the company to take any action in response to the sharing of the information, and the company has no obligation to do so, and (b) we will not take any adverse action based on the company’s decision about whether or how to respond to the information being shared.

• These interactions are entirely voluntary, and it is always up to the SMCs whether to participate.

Strategic Prong 2: Meetings with SMCs to Discuss Potential FMI Threats  

• The second primary prong of the Department’s strategic approach, in addition to transmitting information to SMCs about particular accounts linked to FMI activity, is meeting with SMCs on a voluntary basis to brief and discuss potential FMI threats involving the companies’ platforms, including FMI threats targeting our elections.

• These meetings advance the Department’s efforts to combat FMI by, among other things, affording valuable opportunities for two-way discussion, as the Department – represented by the FITF and local FBI field offices – and SMCs can share information that both sides are seeing on the companies’ platforms relating to potential FMI threat actors, indicators, and trends.  Such information can both facilitate SMCs’ discretionary efforts to mitigate potential FMI threats on their platforms and inform the Department’s investigative efforts.

• The FBI generally meets with each SMC individually, rather than in a group setting with other industry members present, to facilitate the most uninhibited and productive engagement regarding potential FMI threat information implicating the company’s platform. 

• The cadence of the FBI’s engagements with SMCs depends on a variety of factors relating to the threat landscape. For example, the FBI may meet on a regular, periodic basis with certain SMCs due to the volume and frequency of potential FMI threats involving their platforms. The FBI will also meet at any time with SMCs as warranted based on threat-specific developments – such as when multiple potential threats emerge on a particular company’s platform, a particular company affirmatively requests to discuss potential FMI threats with the FBI, or the FBI becomes aware of information indicating that an FMI actor is poised imminently to leverage a particular company’s platform in furtherance of FMI activity.

• To ensure that these meetings are conducted in a manner fully consistent with any applicable First Amendment principles, FBI personnel are not permitted to direct or suggest that SMCs take any actions concerning content on their platforms based on the information discussed at the meeting.

• These interactions are entirely voluntary, and it is always up to the SMCs whether to participate.

The Department’s Engagement with SMCs Is Nationwide

• The Department engages with SMCs – both to transmit specific threat information and to meet regarding the broader threat environment – all around the country, depending on the relevant threat information, and irrespective of where the companies are located.

• To maximize the reach and impact of the Department’s strategy, local FBI field offices across the country conduct outreach – in coordination with the FITF – to SMCs located in their areas of responsibility, to develop and maintain productive contacts at and dialogues with the SMCs relating to FMI.

• To ensure that the Department’s approach at meetings with SMCs nationwide is consistent and coordinated, for every meeting, the FITF participates in the meeting and/or oversees local field office personnel conducting the meeting.

The Department’s Strategy Is Constantly Evolving and Adapting to Match the Threat

• FMI threats, including those targeting our elections, are constant – and constantly evolving.

• These threats are supercharged by emerging technologies like AI. New forms of online FMI threats are continuously surfacing, including AI-fueled synthetic deepfakes. And these threats are originating from an increasingly diverse, growing, and more capable group of foreign actors dedicated to undermining our democracy.

• To effectively combat this inherently fluid threat landscape, the Department’s strategic approach to sharing information with SMCs must – and will – remain flexible and constantly evolve and adapt to meet the threat.  For example, recognizing that FMI threats are perpetually shifting, the SOP are designed to be iterative and adaptive, subject to updates as the threat environment continues to develop.    

• The Department closely coordinates, including through the FITF, with the U.S. Intelligence Community, in order to gain maximum visibility into the technologies and tactics of FMI actors, which will continue to inform the Department’s constantly evolving strategy and investigative techniques to combat the threat.    

Transparency Is a Core Component of the Department’s Work Combating FMI

• The Department believes that transparency about how we conduct our work combating FMI is just as important as the work itself. That is why, for example, we have made public a summary of the SOP – which helps ensure public awareness that the Department’s sharing of FMI threat information with SMCs, including information about threats to our elections, is undertaken pursuant to carefully calibrated protocols that protect the First Amendment rights of Americans. And it is why we are publicly setting forth the principles described herein.

• As we continue to carry out this critical work, we are committed, whenever feasible, to keeping the public updated not only about why we are doing it, but also how. Because transparency strengthens democracy. While our adversaries seeking to undermine that democracy try to hide their hand, we strive to show our work. 

Endnotes