Microsoft says Kremlin-linked Russian troll groups are running disinformation campaigns to interfere in the US presidential election, focusing their efforts on discrediting presidential candidate Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz. The company has released a new report detailing the activities of two troll farms monitored by the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center.
It has been reported that these Kremlin-backed trolls are struggling to find the right strategy after the withdrawal of incumbent US President Joe Biden from the candidacy. However, in late August and early September, one of them started circulating fake videos, which have been viewed millions of times. One of the videos claimed that Harris supporters attacked Trump rally attendees. In another video, a troll claimed that Harris was involved in a car accident in 2011 that left a 13-year-old girl paralyzed. The viral video was published by a few-day-old website pretending to be a San Francisco-based media outlet.
Another troll group stopped posting content about the 2024 Paris Olympic Games and started producing videos aimed at denigrating Kamala Harris. One of the fake videos included a billboard in New York claiming that Harris wanted to change the gender of children. The video was first posted on Telegram and then shared on the X platform, where it received over 100,000 views in a few hours.
Microsoft warns of more disinformation
Microsoft has emphasized that we should expect more fake and AI-edited Russian-made disinformation to circulate online as the election approaches. Earlier this month, the U.S. government accused two employees of Russian state media outlet RT of planning to distribute 2,000 propaganda videos in exchange for paying a Tennessee company $10 million. The U.S. Treasury Department has imposed sanctions on a Russian-based nonprofit called ANO Dialog over its alleged links to the “Doppelganger” campaign, which is accused of creating fake sites that look like major U.S. news sites. Microsoft said in a new report that it has suspended more than 20 accounts associated with ANO Dialog.
Meta also recently banned RT and other Russian state media outlets from its platforms, citing “foreign interference activities.” According to Meta, Russian state-controlled media outlets have attempted to interfere with foreign governments in the past and have used various methods to conceal their activities. The company predicts that Russia will continue to attempt to mislead online platforms.
But it’s not just Russia, other countries are also trying to influence the outcome of this year’s US presidential election. Microsoft, Google and US federal authorities said in reports in August that Iranian hackers launched phishing attacks against several advisers to the Biden-Harris and Trump campaigns. Microsoft also found that groups with ties to the Iranian government were running campaigns to influence votes in the US. One of those groups created a website that attacked and insulted former President Donald Trump.