‘Chaos and confusion’: Microsoft braces for foreign election interference in days ahead

Microsoft has exposed cyber attacks and disinformation campaigns from foreign adversaries in the lead up to the U.S. presidential election that go beyond the tactics deployed four years ago. On the eve of Election Day, the threats aren’t letting up.

“I do think people should expect that the noise levels — the sort of chaos and confusion — will continue through Election Day and then most certainly in the days after,” Ginny Badanes, the general manager of Microsoft’s Democracy Forward program, told the POLITICO Tech podcast.

In recent months, Russian disinformation campaigns designed to disparage Vice President Kamala Harris have experimented with artificial intelligence to create or enhance fake content. And Iranian hackers have successfully infiltrated former President Donald Trump’s campaign.

Microsoft’s election defense efforts focus on these foreign adversaries because they “have the funding to be persistent over time” and are willing to “pick up on whatever narratives are working, regardless of the source,” Badanes said.

But many of the rumors and conspiracy theories that emerge in the days ahead are expected to originate from American political groups. Trump and his allies have preemptively churned up claims about voter fraud in swing states like Pennsylvania.

Since 2020, attempts by tech companies and academic researchers to crack down on American-made disinformation have drawn accusations of censorship from Republicans. And some tech firms, chiefly Elon Musk-owned X (formerly known as Twitter), have pulled back on their efforts to police political content this election cycle.

For its part, Microsoft has tried to carve out a different lane. “What you’ll find is we’ve been more vocal about what we’ve seen this cycle than any year before,” Badanes said. “We feel like the American public deserves more information, not less.” Listen to the full interview.