Russian Disinformation Campaign Targets US Election with Fake Videos

On 8 Novem­ber 2024, Poli­ti­Fact report­ed that Rus­sia launched a coor­di­nat­ed dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paign called “Storm-1516” dur­ing the US pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, using actors and fake news web­sites to spread false nar­ra­tives about elec­tion fraud and can­di­date mis­con­duct. The arti­cle begins:

A hit-and-run cov­er-up. Sex­u­al abuse alle­ga­tions from 27 years ago. An elec­tion work­er rip­ping up bal­lots. Hait­ian immi­grants admit­ting to vot­er fraud. These were some of the sto­ries fea­tured in a series of videos from a Rus­sia-linked dis­in­for­ma­tion net­work that laid out seri­ous alle­ga­tions of fraud and oth­er mis­deeds in the 2024 U.S. pres­i­den­tial elec­tion’s lead-up. The U.S. gov­ern­ment respond­ed swift­ly to these videos’ false­hoods. But experts said the threat of for­eign influ­ence oper­a­tions was unlike­ly to end after Elec­tion Day. For­mer Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump declared vic­to­ry ear­ly Nov. 6 and Vice Pres­i­dent Kamala Har­ris con­grat­u­lat­ed him. Cyber­se­cu­ri­ty and Infra­struc­ture Secu­ri­ty Agency Direc­tor Jen East­er­ly said mali­cious activ­i­ty had no mate­r­i­al effect on elec­tion infra­struc­ture secu­ri­ty and integri­ty. Two Geor­gia polling places briefly halt­ed vot­ing because of non­cred­i­ble bomb threats that Sec­re­tary of State Brad Raf­fensperg­er said were “of Russ­ian ori­gin.” The FBI also cred­it­ed Russ­ian email domains with cir­cu­lat­ing bomb threats in sev­er­al states, although the agency did not deem them credible.

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Key Points:

1. US intel­li­gence agen­cies iden­ti­fied Rus­sia as “most active threat” in elec­tion interference
2. The cam­paign used paid actors and influ­encers to spread false narratives
3. Videos pri­mar­i­ly tar­get­ed Vice Pres­i­dent Har­ris and her run­ning mate
4. Experts say oper­a­tions will con­tin­ue beyond the elec­tion, focus­ing on Ukraine policy