Microsoft said Tuesday that Russian operatives have in recent weeks intensified their online attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign by producing and disseminating videos promoting “outlandish conspiracy theories” aimed at stoking US racial and political divisions.

One of the inauthentic videos, which Microsoft said had been viewed millions of times, claimed to show Harris supporters attacking an attendee of a Donald Trump rally. Another video falsely claimed that Harris paralyzed a young girl in a 2011 hit-and-run accident. Russian operatives promoted the latter story through a website pretending to be a local San Francisco media outlet, Microsoft researchers said.

Both videos were still accessible on X as of Tuesday afternoon, with one post of the video garnering 1.5 million views on its own. CNN has requested comment from the social media platform.


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  • Harold_Penisman@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    It sucks how easily fake videos and articles simply become the new talking points and common “knowledge” of republicans. Not that democrats are immune to misinformation, but it is so easily spread on the right.

    • frunch@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Well how else are you gonna expose the plight of the modern American without fabricating stories and backing them up with AI-generated video?!

      What bothers me is how predictable all this was when AI really started catching on. We all saw this coming from a mile away and lo and behold here it is doing exactly what we thought it would.

    • 9point6@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      It’s a well documented phenomenon that mentally well people with half decent critical thinking skills typically don’t support right wing politics. It generally preys on the gullible.