Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free
A guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world.
The US government has announced that “Russian influencers” are behind a viral video purporting to show a Haitian immigrant illegally voting for Kamala Harris in the presidential election.
On Friday, intelligence agencies said the video, which they said was filmed in the battleground state of Georgia, was “part of a broader Russian effort to raise unfounded questions about the integrity of the U.S. election and stoke divisions among Americans.” He said that he agrees with the opinion of Russian organizations. “Previous activities”.
They said that Russian actors “also produced videos falsely accusing individuals associated with Democratic presidential candidates of accepting bribes from U.S. entertainers,” and that the Russian government has made further accusations in the final days of the election campaign. He warned that he was planning to publish content that would be inappropriate.
The warning comes as officials across the U.S. are bracing for a flow of misinformation surrounding the election, coming not only from within the United States but also from foreign adversaries such as Russia, Iran and China.
Georgia’s top elections official on Thursday appealed to Elon Musk to remove “targeted disinformation” about voter fraud in the state from social media site X.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger cited a video of a man sitting in the back seat of a moving vehicle claiming to be a Haitian immigrant who voted for Vice President Harris from Gwinnett County, northeast of Atlanta. was. He plans to vote again in Fulton County. The camera then pans to a hand holding what appears to be four Georgia driver’s licenses.
Raffensperger said the video has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times on X and is “obviously fake.” He added that the post was likely “the product of a Russian troll farm.”
“We call on Elon Musk and other social media platform leaders to remove this,” he added.
Election experts say foreign disinformation, especially regarding Musk It warns that it may spread.
Company X announced on Friday that it had found the video to be in violation of internal company policies, adding that it was “taking action against the post.”
Cyber experts have found that Russia, Iran and China are ramping up influence operations in the run-up to the vote.
Last Friday, U.S. intelligence agencies implicated a Russian actor in another video falsely depicting an individual tearing up a ballot in Pennsylvania. The video also became a hot topic on X.
Meanwhile, Microsoft said last week it was powered by artificial intelligence that included disinformation about Harris from a Kremlin-aligned troll farm it called “Storm 1516,” and Russian disinformation about Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz. announced that they had discovered the video. It received over 5 million views on X in the first 24 hours.
Iran has focused on both hacking and influence operations, including sending material stolen from Donald Trump’s campaign to U.S. media and launching a secret news site targeting voters with disinformation. .
U.S. officials have indicated that Iran does not want President Trump to be re-elected. That’s because President Trump has vowed to take a tough stance on Tehran and prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
More than 3.6 million people have voted in Georgia, with early voting available two weeks before Election Day. Recent polls show Trump with a slight lead in battleground states, but still within the margin of error.
Recommended
Raffensperger, a Republican who gained national attention for rejecting President Trump’s request to “get 11,780 votes” to overturn the state’s 2020 election results, has faced a flurry of elections over the past few months. He has sought to convince voters in the state that voting in the state is safe. Naysayers at various levels of local government.
He also disputed claims by Trump allies that Georgia’s voter rolls include a significant number of noncitizens. Raffensperger’s office reported this month that it could only identify 20 noncitizens out of the state’s 8.2 million registered voters.
Musk has repeatedly used his position on X to claim that Democrats are “importing” immigrants to vote. This month, the billionaire featured a post from his group America Pac that claimed Georgia’s immigrant population has increased by 401 percent. “Importation of voters on an unprecedented scale!” he claimed.
Additional reporting by Felicia Schwartz in Washington
