Russia steps up disinformation effort against Kamala Harris campaign

Russia has stepped up disinformation operations against Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign by releasing conspiracy videos, Microsoft said Tuesday, fueling concerns about foreign interference in the U.S. election.

In late August, Storm-1516, a Kremlin-allied influence group, produced two fake videos to discredit the campaign of Harris and her running mate Tim Walz, Microsoft said in a report. Both videos have been viewed millions of times. One purported to show a group of Harris supporters attacking a person falsely portrayed as attending a Trump rally. The second showed an actor relaying false allegations that the vice president paralyzed a young girl in a 2011 car accident and fled the scene.

A second Russian group, known as Storm-1679, previously dedicated to spreading disinformation about the 2024 Paris Olympics, has begun posting fake videos discrediting Kamala Harris, Microsoft says. “The focus on the Harris-Walz campaign reflects a strategic move by Russian actors to exploit any perceived vulnerabilities in the candidates.”observed Clint Watts, general manager of Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center.

“As we approach the election, we should expect Russian actors to continue to use cyber proxies and hacktivist groups to amplify their messages through media sites and social networks to spread political content, fake videos, and artificial intelligence (AI)-driven propaganda.”.

Avoid any “foreign interference activity”

The report comes a day before a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on foreign threats to the upcoming election. On Monday, Meta Corp., which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, announced it was banning Russian media group Rossiya Segodnia, which owns RT, from accessing its platforms worldwide, to prevent any “foreign interference activity”.

Washington has accused RT and its employees of using front companies to fund a social media influence campaign. Earlier this year, the Justice Department said it had uncovered a Russian disinformation campaign that used bots to create fake profiles on X. The campaign, which aimed to create a conflictual atmosphere in the United States, was conceived by an RT editor, funded by the Kremlin and aided by an agent of Russia’s FSB security service, the department said.