In an emotional clip from a wheelchair, a victim says she “cannot remain silent any more”. But everything about the video is made up by a troll army called Storm-1516.
The video was seen millions of times across social media but some viewers were suspicious: It featured a young black woman who claimed US Vice President Kamala Harris left her paralysed in a hit-and-run accident in San Francisco 13 years ago.
The tech giant’s report released on Tuesday details how Kremlin-aligned actors that at first struggled to adapt to President Joe Biden dropping out of the race have now gone full throttle in their covert influence efforts against Harris and Democrats. Russia-linked actors have spent several months seeking to manipulate American perspectives with covert postings, but until this point, their efforts saw little traction. Notably, some of the recent examples cited in the Microsoft report received significant social media engagement from unwitting Americans who shared the fake stories with outrage.“As the election approaches, people get more heated,” Clint Watts, general manager of the Microsoft Threat Analysis Centre said in an interview.
Microsoft’s report also pointed to another Russian influence actor it calls Storm-1679 that has recently pivoted from posting about the French election and the Paris Olympics to posting about Harris. Earlier this month, the group posted a manipulated video depicting a Times Square billboard that linked Harris to gender-affirming surgeries.
Harris has vowed to continue supporting America’s ally Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s invasion if elected president. Trump has demurred when asked about whether he wants Ukraine to win the war, sAt a forum in early September, Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to suggest jokingly that he would support Harris in the upcoming US election. Intelligence officials have said Moscow prefers Trump.The Harris campaign declined to comment.
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