NEW YORK, May 28 (Reuters) - Meta said on

Wednesday it had found "likely AI-generated" content used

deceptively on its Facebook and Instagram platforms, including

comments praising Israel's handling of the war in Gaza published

below posts from global news organizations and U.S. lawmakers.

The social media company, in a quarterly security report,

said the accounts posed as Jewish students, African Americans

and other concerned citizens, targeting audiences in the United

States and Canada. It attributed the campaign to Tel Aviv-based

political marketing firm STOIC.

STOIC did not immediately respond to a request for comment

on the allegations.

WHY IT'S IMPORTANT

While Meta has found basic profile photos generated by

artificial intelligence in influence operations since 2019, the

report is the first to disclose the use of more sophisticated

generative AI technologies since they emerged in late 2022.

Researchers have fretted that generative AI, which can

quickly and cheaply produce human-like text, imagery and audio,

could lead to more effective disinformation campaigns and sway

elections.

In a press call, Meta security executives said they did not

think novel AI technologies had impeded their ability to disrupt

influence networks, which are coordinated attempts to push

messages.

Executives said they had not seen AI-generated imagery of

politicians realistic enough to be confused for authentic

photos.

KEY QUOTE

"There are several examples across these networks of how

they use likely generative AI tooling to create content. Perhaps

it gives them the ability to do that quicker or to do that with

more volume. But it hasn't really impacted our ability to detect

them," said Meta head of threat investigations Mike Dvilyanski.

BY THE NUMBERS

The report highlighted six covert influence operations that

Meta disrupted in the first quarter.

In addition to the STOIC network, Meta shut down an

Iran-based network focused on the Israel-Hamas conflict,

although it did not identify any use of generative AI in that

campaign.

CONTEXT

Meta and other tech giants have grappled with how to address

potential misuse of new AI technologies, especially in

elections.

Researchers have found examples of image generators from

companies including OpenAI and Microsoft ( MSFT ) producing

photos with voting-related disinformation, despite those

companies having policies against such content.

The companies have emphasized digital labeling systems to

mark AI-generated content at the time of its creation, although

the tools do not work on text and researchers have doubts about

their effectiveness.

WHAT'S NEXT

Meta faces key tests of its defenses with elections in the

European Union in early June and in the United States in

November.