Wray told the House Judiciary Committee that Russia is relying on a covert social media campaign aimed at dividing American public opinion and sowing discord, similar to actions taken during the 2016 election. However, Wray disclosed that law enforcement has not seen ongoing efforts by Russia to target the US’s election infrastructure.

He stated that this effort, which involves fictional personas, bots, social media postings and disinformation, may have an “election-year uptick” but is also a “round-the-clock threat” that is in some ways harder to combat than an election system hack.

“Unlike a cyber attack on election infrastructure, that kind of effort – disinformation – in a world where we have a First Amendment and believe strongly in freedom of expression, the FBI is not going to be in the business of being the truth police and monitoring disinformation online,” Wray said.

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security are currently on alert for election-related cyber activity similar to that which occurred in 2016. This was when Russians hacked emails belonging to Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and probed local election systems for vulnerabilities. Wray said: “I don’t think we’ve seen any ongoing efforts to target election infrastructure as we did in 2016”.

His appearance in front of the committee came two days after Democratic presidential caucuses in Iowa were marred by a malfunctioning smartphone app that caused a delay in the reporting of results.

Although local and federal officials stressed that the issues weren’t caused by a “foreign intrusion”, the error in the system played into existing unease surrounding election security. It has also risked amplifying concerns among US citizens about the integrity of the voting process.

Wray added that even without signs of election systems being targeted, Russian efforts to interfere in the election through disinformation have not tapered off since 2016, but that social media had injected “steroids” into those efforts.

“They identify an issue that they know that the American people feel passionately about on both sides and then they take both sides and spin them up so they pit us against each other,” Wray argued. “And then they combine that with an effort to weaken our confidence in our elections and our democratic institutions, which has been a pernicious and asymmetric way of engaging in information warfare.”

A report compiled by former special counsel Robert Mueller found that the Russian Internet Research Agency carried out a social media campaign designed to benefit Republican President Donald Trump and “hurt” Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, with its ultimate goal being to “sow discord in the US political system”.

Mueller, along with intelligence agencies and the Senate Intelligence Committee, also concluded that the Russians had attempted to hack into voting infrastructure across the US. As part of his investigation, Mueller indicted 12 Russian agents in 2018 for successfully hacking into email accounts of Clinton campaign staffers and Democratic National Committee networks.

Wray told the House Judiciary Committee that Russia is relying on a covert social media campaign aimed at dividing American public opinion and sowing discord, similar to actions taken during the 2016 election. However, Wray disclosed that law enforcement has not seen ongoing efforts by Russia to target the US’s election infrastructure.

He stated that this effort, which involves fictional personas, bots, social media postings and disinformation, may have an “election-year uptick” but is also a “round-the-clock threat” that is in some ways harder to combat than an election system hack.

“Unlike a cyber attack on election infrastructure, that kind of effort – disinformation – in a world where we have a First Amendment and believe strongly in freedom of expression, the FBI is not going to be in the business of being the truth police and monitoring disinformation online,” Wray said.

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security are currently on alert for election-related cyber activity similar to that which occurred in 2016. This was when Russians hacked emails belonging to Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and probed local election systems for vulnerabilities. Wray said: “I don’t think we’ve seen any ongoing efforts to target election infrastructure as we did in 2016”.

His appearance in front of the committee came two days after Democratic presidential caucuses in Iowa were marred by a malfunctioning smartphone app that caused a delay in the reporting of results.

Although local and federal officials stressed that the issues weren’t caused by a “foreign intrusion”, the error in the system played into existing unease surrounding election security. It has also risked amplifying concerns among US citizens about the integrity of the voting process.

Wray added that even without signs of election systems being targeted, Russian efforts to interfere in the election through disinformation have not tapered off since 2016, but that social media had injected “steroids” into those efforts.

“They identify an issue that they know that the American people feel passionately about on both sides and then they take both sides and spin them up so they pit us against each other,” Wray argued. “And then they combine that with an effort to weaken our confidence in our elections and our democratic institutions, which has been a pernicious and asymmetric way of engaging in information warfare.”

A report compiled by former special counsel Robert Mueller found that the Russian Internet Research Agency carried out a social media campaign designed to benefit Republican President Donald Trump and “hurt” Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, with its ultimate goal being to “sow discord in the US political system”.

Mueller, along with intelligence agencies and the Senate Intelligence Committee, also concluded that the Russians had attempted to hack into voting infrastructure across the US. As part of his investigation, Mueller indicted 12 Russian agents in 2018 for successfully hacking into email accounts of Clinton campaign staffers and Democratic National Committee networks.