Masha Buba | Getty | Getty Images
The video has been viewed millions of times on social media, but some viewers are skeptical: A young black woman in the video claims that Vice President Kamala Harris was involved in a car accident in San Francisco 13 years ago. The hit-and-run accident left her paralyzed.
The wheelchair-bound victim gave an emotional retelling of her story, saying she “could no longer remain silent” and lamenting that her childhood “ended too soon”.
Immediately after the video was released on September 2, social media users pointed out reasons for caution. The KBSF-TV news channel in San Francisco that purports to be from San Francisco does not exist. The channel’s website, launched a week ago, contains articles plagiarized from real news outlets. The X-ray image of the woman shown in the video was taken from an online medical journal. The video and the text story on the website spell the name of the alleged victim differently.
That caution is warranted, according to a new report Microsoft Threat intelligence report, which confirmed that the fabricated story was disinformation coming from a Russia-linked troll farm.
The report released by the tech giant on Tuesday details how Kremlin-aligned actors initially struggled to adjust to President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the race and are now going all-out to exert covert influence over Harris and the Democratic Party.
It also explains how Russian intelligence agents worked with pro-Russian cyber “hacktivists” to disseminate allegedly hacked and leaked material, a tactic it noted could be weaponized to weaken U.S. confidence in November election results.
The findings show that despite the dramatic changes in the political landscape, as the election approaches, groups with ties to America’s foreign adversaries have redoubled their efforts to influence U.S. political opinion, sometimes through deep manipulation. They also shed further light on how Russia’s efforts to counter U.S. pro-Ukraine policies have translated into escalating attacks on Democratic presidential candidates.
The report builds on previous U.S. concerns about Russian interference in the upcoming election. Earlier this month, the Biden administration seized Kremlin-run websites and charged two Russian state media employees with allegedly secretly funding and influencing right-wing influencer networks.
Russia-linked actors have spent months trying to manipulate U.S. opinion through covert posts, but so far their efforts have had little success. Notably, some of the recent examples cited in the Microsoft report have received significant engagement on social media from uninformed Americans who angrily shared these false stories.
“As the election approaches, people are getting more heated,” Clint Watts, general manager of Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center, said in an interview. “People tend to get information from sources that they don’t really understand or don’t even know about the assessment.”
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, U.S. Vice President, speaks during a campaign event in North Hampton, New Hampshire, U.S., September 4, 2024.
Brian Snyder | Reuters
Microsoft explained that the video accusing Harris of staging a fake hit-and-run incident came from a Russia-aligned influence network known as Storm-1516, which other researchers call CopyCop. The video, which features an actor, is typical of the group’s approach to responding to current events through seemingly authentic “whistleblower” accounts that may appear interesting to American voters, the company said. of unreported news.
The report revealed a second video circulated by the group that allegedly showed two black men beating a bloodied white woman at a rally for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. The video was shared thousands of times on social platform
Microsoft’s report also identifies another Russian influence actor known as Storm-1679, who recently switched from posting about the French election and the Paris Olympics to posting about Harris. Earlier this month, the group released a doctored video depicting a Times Square billboard linking Harris to gender confirmation surgery.
The content highlighted in the report does not appear to have been generated using artificial intelligence tools. Instead, it uses actors and more old-fashioned editing techniques.
Watts said Microsoft has been tracking the use of artificial intelligence by nation-states for more than a year, and while foreign players initially experimented with artificial intelligence, many have gone back to basics as they realize that artificial intelligence “may be more expensive.” time and more efficiently.
Asked about Russia’s motives, Watts said the Russian-allied groups tracked by Microsoft may not necessarily support specific candidates, but they are motivated by undermining anyone who “supports Ukraine policies.”
Harris vowed to continue supporting U.S. ally Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression if elected president. When asked if he wanted Ukraine to win the war, Trump demurred, saying at the recent presidential debate, “I want the war to stop.”
On August 14, 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin held a meeting with Alexey Besprozvanykh, Acting Governor of the Kaliningrad Region, at his official residence in the Novo-Ogaryovo Oblast outside Moscow, Russia.
Gavriel Grigorov | Reuters
At a forum in early September, Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to jokingly suggest that he would support Vice President Kamala Harris in the upcoming U.S. election. Intelligence officials say Moscow prefers Trump.
The Harris campaign declined to comment. The Russian Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
Earlier this summer, Microsoft found that Iranian groups were also laying the groundwork to foment electoral division by creating fake news websites, impersonating activists, and targeting the presidential campaign through email phishing attacks.
U.S. intelligence officials are preparing criminal charges related to the attack on the Trump campaign, two people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.
Microsoft’s new report also talks about how an influence actor with ties to China used short videos to criticize Biden and Harris and create anti-Trump content, suggesting it doesn’t appear to be interested in supporting specific candidates.
Instead, the company said the apparent goal of the China-aligned group is to “sow doubt and confusion among American voters ahead of the 2024 presidential election.”
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