Russian actors on Friday “produced and enhanced” the latest viral video showing a man tearing up ballots in Pennsylvania, the FBI and two other federal agencies said.
Officials from the FBI and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said the U.S. intelligence community made this assessment based on available information and past activities of other Russian influence actors, including videos and disinformation efforts.
“This Russian activity is part of a broader effort by Moscow to raise unwarranted questions about the integrity of the US election and increase divisions among Americans,” the agencies said. said in the statement. “In the weeks and months leading up to and following Election Day [intelligence community] Expect Russia to create and broadcast additional media content that seeks to undermine confidence in the integrity of the election and divide Americans.”
The circulation of the video went fast. In a few hours, he collected hundreds of thousands of views from one post on X. In the video, a man appears to have perished Allegedly filled ballots in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
Bucks County Prosecutor’s Office and Yardley Borough Police Department et al joint statement On Thursday, they investigated and deemed the video “fictitious.”
“Our investigation concluded that this video was fabricated to undermine confidence in the upcoming elections,” they said.
“The Bucks County Prosecutor’s Office will not tolerate any form of voter pressure, intimidation or fraud,” the statement added.
The Russian Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Kremlin has repeatedly denied any interference in the US elections.
Darren Linville, co-director of Clemson University’s Center for Media Forensics, attributed the viral video to a Russian disinformation production group known as researchers. Storm-1516.
Linville’s team first discovered the Storm-1516 campaign last fall.
Linville says the quality of the video and the impersonation of actors with West African accents as black Americans is typical of the Russian campaign. The account that first shared the video had previously shared its content.
“That’s typical,” Linville said. “Undermining the electoral process and sowing doubt about democracy and the institutions that enable it to function is at the heart of Russian disinformation, and that’s what this video is trying to do.”
Expecting “a new story from Storm-1516 every day at this point,” Linville said he’s confident more will follow.
The joint statement by federal agencies regarding the viral video was the latest warning from the intelligence community about increasing foreign efforts to interfere in US elections. They are warned last month Countries such as Russia, Iran, and China “seek election cycles as moments of vulnerability, seeking to exacerbate divisions in US society to some extent for their own benefit.”
Earlier Friday, the FBI and CISA said they were investigating “unauthorized access to commercial telecommunications infrastructure.” NBC News and other news outlets reported Friday that a Hacking campaign in China targeted the phones of former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio.
Separately, there were three Iranian citizens was charged last month In connection with hacking the Trump campaign and attempting to provide stolen materials to then-President Joe Biden’s campaign. The FBI and others said last month that they had “no information at this time” indicating that recipients associated with Biden’s campaign responded to the emails.
Spokesman of Iran’s UN mission previously disproved country’s role in the operation.
Kevin Collier and Tom Winter contributed.