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Operation “Trolling Stone”: Russia-linked influence activity

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Operation “Trolling Stone”: Russia-linked influence activity

OpenAI banned accounts linked to a previously unreported operation we dubbed "Trolling Stone", using AI to generate comments about an alleged Russian cult leader’s arrest in Argentina.

This case study was originally published in OpenAI’s February 2026⁠(opens in a new window) report on disrupting malicious uses of AI.

We banned a number of ChatGPT accounts that were using our models to generate batches of social media comments about the arrest⁠(opens in a new window) in Argentina⁠(opens in a new window) of an alleged Russian “cult leader” named Konstantin Rudnev. Different parts of this activity very likely originated in Pakistan, Armenia and Uruguay. Further activity likely originated in Argentina and Kazakhstan. The Pakistan-origin activity was connected to a for-hire actor. Some of the social media comments supported the alleged “cult leader”. Others criticized the Argentinian legal system and trolled the Argentinian edition of Rolling Stone magazine, which had reported⁠(opens in a new window) on the case. Based on this activity, we have nicknamed the operation, “Trolling Stone”.

This operation featured multiple clusters of activity in widely dispersed locations. The Pakistan-based user prompted in English, while the other users mainly prompted in Russian. Despite their geographical spread, they behaved in a coordinated way, generating pro-Rudnev content in Argentinian Spanish that was posted on the operation’s Facebook pages and in online articles.

One main workstream consisted of generating short articles (typically three or four paragraphs) about general news in Argentina. We identified some of the articles being posted on a set of Facebook Pages that posed as news outlets in Argentina.


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