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The video has been viewed millions of times on social media, but some viewers were suspicious: it showed a young black woman claiming that US Vice President Kamala Harris left her paralyzed in a hit-and-run in San Francisco 13 years ago.
In an emotional account from a wheelchair, the alleged victim said she “could no longer remain silent” and lamented that her childhood “had ended too soon”.
Immediately after the video was posted on September 2, social media users indicated there were reasons to be cautious.
The supposed news channel it came from, San Francisco’s KBSF-TV, did not exist.
A week earlier, a website had been set up for the channel, which contained plagiarized articles from real news organizations.
The X-rays of the woman seen in the video were taken from online medical journals.
And in the video and text story on the website, the alleged victim’s name was spelled differently.
The caution was justified, said a new microsoft threat intelligence reportconfirming that the fabricated story was disinformation from a troll farm with ties to Russia.
Shift in focus after Biden’s departure
The tech giant’s report, published on Tuesday, detailed how Kremlin-affiliated actors who initially took issue with US President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race are now fully committed to secretly influencing Harris and the Democrats.
It also explains how Russian intelligence agencies are collaborating with pro-Russian cyber hacktivists to promote allegedly hacked and leaked material, a strategy the company says could be used to undermine U.S. confidence in the November election results.
The findings show how, despite dramatic changes in the political landscape, groups with ties to foreign adversaries of the US are redoubling their efforts to influence political opinion as elections approach, sometimes through highly manipulative means.
They also provide more insight into how Russian efforts to combat pro-Ukrainian policies in the US are translating into increased attacks on the Democratic presidential ticket. The report builds on previous US concerns about Russian interference in the upcoming election.
Earlier this month, the Biden administration seized Kremlin websites and charged two Russian state media employees in an alleged effort to secretly fund and influence a network of right-wing influencers.
Actors with ties to Russia have tried for months to manipulate American perspectives with secret messaging, but so far their efforts have had little traction. Notably, some of the recent examples cited in the Microsoft report drew significant social media engagement from unwitting Americans who shared the fake stories with outrage.
“As we get closer to the election, people are getting angrier,” Clint Watts, general manager of the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center, said in an interview.
“People tend to gather information from sources they don’t really know or even know how to evaluate.”
Effort to create authentic accounts
Microsoft explained that the video blaming Harris for a fake hit-and-run crash came from a Russian influential network called Storm-1516, which other researchers have dubbed CopyCop.
The video, which features an actor as the main character, is typical of the group’s efforts to respond to current events with authentic whistleblower accounts that can be viewed as juicy, unreported news for American voters, the company said.
The report revealed a second video distributed by the group that claimed to show 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 the social platform X, formerly Twitter, and prompted comments such as: “This is the kind of stuff to start civil wars.”
Microsoft’s report also pointed to another Russian influencer it calls Storm-1679, who recently switched from posting about the French elections and the Paris Olympics to posting about Harris. Earlier this month, the group posted a manipulated video of a Times Square billboard linking Harris to gender-affirming surgery.
The content highlighted in the report does not appear to use generative artificial intelligence tools, instead using actors and more old-fashioned editing techniques.
According to Watts, Microsoft has been tracking how countries are using AI for more than a year. Foreign entities initially tried AI, but many have gone back to basics because they realized the technology “is likely to take more time and not be more effective.”
With the aim of undermining support for Ukraine
Asked about Russia’s motivation, Watts said the groups Microsoft tracks with ties to Russia don’t necessarily support specific candidates, but they are motivated to undermine anyone who “supports Ukraine in their policies.”
Harris has pledged to continue supporting US ally Ukraine in its fight against the Russian invasion if elected president.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned Western countries not to supply Ukraine with long-range missiles, saying NATO risks “war” if it crosses that red line. Andrew Rasiulis, a fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, joins Canada Tonight to analyze Putin’s warning.
Trump has been coy when asked if he wants Ukraine to win the war. During the recent presidential debate, he said, “I want the war to stop.”
At a forum in early September, Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to jokingly suggest he would support Harris in the upcoming U.S. election. Intelligence officials have said Moscow favors Trump.
Harris’ campaign team declined to comment.
The Russian Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment.
