A new ad that appeared on the streets of Philadelphia on Monday showed Vice President Kamala Harris in an Eagles jersey holding a football, with “KAMALA” written in bold letters above the slogan “Official Candidate of the Philadelphia Eagles.”
The NFL confirmed the ads were fake.
“We are aware that false political ads are circulating and are working with our advertising partner to remove them,” Eagles said. statement posted on social media.
NBC Philadelphia informed It discovered at least six of the fake ads around the city before they were taken down on Monday. It is not clear who is responsible for them.
A link is also included in the announcements philadelphiaeagles.com/voteis a realistic but nonpartisan site that lists important election dates and voter registration resources.
Intersection Media, the company that owns the bus stop ad where the ads were found, told NBC Philadelphia that the ads were not paid for but were instead forcefully placed in billboards.
“We are aware that several of our bus shelters located in Philadelphia have been vandalized and the paid advertising copy in each of these shelters has been replaced with unauthorized copy,” said Scott Goldsmith, president and CEO of Intersection Media.
The statement noted that although ad boxes are locked to prevent vandalism, people sometimes manage to unlock them and insert unauthorized material.
“We note that the Eagles and Intersection had nothing to do with the creation or posting of this unauthorized copy, and Intersection staff will remove the ads as soon as possible,” Goldsmith said.
A city spokesperson confirmed the physical thefts to NBC Philadelphia.
“This was not a digital breach; whoever was responsible for the illegally placed posters entered the securely covered sheltered advertising space and somehow placed the posters in the space,” the spokesperson said.
Meanwhile, fake political ads have proliferated on the Internet, including the Kamala Harris in-depth spoof it went viral in July and AI-generated images of Donald Trump who spread misinformation earlier this year.
Kamala Harris’ campaign did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment.