In 2024, Russian disinformation has increased in intensity. Matryoshka, Portal Kombat, Copycop: these names are those of different operations, which continued their attempts at interference in the middle of an election year in France or the United States. Some have sometimes directly targeted media, including France 24. But despite the intensification of such campaigns, their impact raises questions.
On February 14, 2024, part of the France 24 editorial team was alerted: a manipulated video – a deepfake – of the channel's journalist Julien Fanciulli began circulating several hours ago on Russian-speaking Telegram channels.
On the screen, we can see our colleague affirm that Emmanuel Macron would have canceled a visit to Ukraine after the discovery by the French secret services of a risk of assassination against the president.
Online, this misinformation, also pushed by accounts on X, remains confined to spheres of pro-Russian disinformation. But the question of its capacity to harm the channel's image arises. The same evening, the Observateurs editorial team will do an on-air column to debunk this falsehood and explain the origin of the fake extract, taken from a television news filmed a few days previously.
Operations to saturate fact-checking networks
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Read more on Les Observateurs – France 24
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