Date published: 01/11/2024 – 21:16Changed: 01/11/2024 – 21:15

2 minutes

The United States has been on high alert for the potential for lying by pro-Kremlin actors in the final days of the polarizing race between Republican candidate Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the swing state’s top election official, said a video in which a Haitian immigrant claimed to have voted more than once for Harris was an example of “targeted disinformation.”

In the 20-second clip, a man says in stilted, robotic speech: “We’re from Haiti. We came to America six months ago and we already have American citizenship; we’re voting for Kamala Harris.”

Raffensperger said the “obviously fake” video was likely a production of “Russian troll farms,” ​​while American intelligence officials directly blamed “Russian influence actors.”

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said in a joint statement that the Russian activity was “part of a broader effort by Moscow to raise unsubstantiated questions about the integrity of the U.S. elections and fuel divisions among Americans.” “

Disinformation researchers have highlighted a multifaceted effort to create chaos and influence voters ahead of the Nov. 5 election — from pro-Russian bot accounts on the X platform to pro-Kremlin sites posing as “news” sources and influencers allegedly on Moscow’s payroll.

Darren Linvill, a disinformation expert from Clemson University, said that the latest video bears traces of the Russian propaganda network Storm-1516.

“They were very careful in making the film so as not to give anything away to the digital sleuths,” said Linvill, who examined the group closely.

“More importantly, they also use West African actors, often recruited from the Saint Petersburg area,” he told AFP.

‘Sleeper agents’

Storm-1516 has previously produced fake videos to discredit Harris’ campaign, including a false allegation of sexual assault against running mate Tim Walz, investigators say.

Last week, the group was linked to a viral video showing mail-in ballots for Trump being destroyed in the swing state of Pennsylvania.

The Microsoft Threat Analysis Center warned last month that Russian agents were stepping up efforts to spread conspiracy-laden videos to disparage Harris’ campaign.

Other efforts to spread fraud include hundreds of pro-Kremlin sites masquerading as American “news” sources, fueling the explosion of polarizing or false election narratives.

In September, the Justice Department accused two employees of the Russian state-backed RT news organization of funneling nearly $10 million through a network of front companies to American social media influencers who are among Trump’s leading online cheerleaders.

Conservative figures such as Benny Johnson and Tim Pool, each of whom has a large following on tech platforms, acknowledged being part of the scheme but denied knowing the source of the funding.

Earlier this month, the American Sunlight Project, a Washington-based disinformation research group, said hundreds of pro-Russia bot accounts on X were spreading election misinformation and amplifying false narratives about Harris.

The group called accounts that had evaded detection for years “sleeper agents.”

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© 2024 AFP