The disinformation warning comes from the edge of Europe

A TikTok video by actor Brian Baumgartner from the American version of The officeThe call to oust 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 number of American celebrities who addressed Maia Sandu, Moldova's current pro-European president, and announced in poor Russian: “We, Hollywood stars, support the people of Moldova in their desire to overthrow you, Sandu.” “ .” These weren’t deepfakes. Instead, the videos — which researchers suspected were part of a pro-Kremlin influence operation — were commissioned on Cameo, the app that lets anyone buy personalized greetings from celebrities. Neither Cameo nor Baumgartner's representatives responded to WIRED's request for comment.

For years, Moldova – a country similar in size to the US state of Maryland, sandwiched between the EU and Ukraine – has complained about Russian interference. But more recently, as this former Soviet state prepares for a crucial presidential election and a referendum on EU membership, the country has become a cautionary tale of how the world's largest social media platforms are helping to create and finance a complex Disinformation operations can be abused This sows discord over some of a society's most contentious issues.

Since war broke out in neighboring Ukraine two years ago, bots have been scouring the internet in Moldova looking for authentic content to share with a wider audience, such as videos of Ukrainian refugees misbehaving. Then ordinary Moldovans complained that their Facebook feeds were being flooded with political, often anti-government, ads run by pages with Vietnamese names. A year later, researchers estimated that Meta had earned at least $200,000 from a pro-Kremlin advertising campaign aimed exclusively at Moldova. The Russian Foreign Ministry did not respond to WIRED's request for comment.

“The complexity is unprecedented,” says Ana Revenco, Moldova’s former interior minister who is now in charge of the country’s new center for strategic communications and countering disinformation. In her opinion, what is happening in Moldova on Facebook, Telegram, TikTok and YouTube is a warning for the rest of the world. “It shows us our collective vulnerability,” she says. “Platforms are not only active here. If (Russia) can use them here, they can use them anywhere.”

In the run-up to Sunday's vote, Russia-linked accounts have reached new levels of aggressiveness, Revenco says. “They are activating accounts that were created a long time ago and were on hold,” she explains. “They are dedicated bots and sync posts across multiple platforms.”