U.S. intelligence agencies have blamed Russia for making a video that falsely purports to show a Haitian immigrant claiming to have voted multiple times in the U.S. state of Georgia.
Georgia’s Significance
Notably, Georgia is one of seven battleground states that will determine the winner in Tuesday’s U.S. presidential election.
A Close Contest
The entire world is keeping a close watch on the tight contest between Republican former President Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has made this assessment.
Assessment Based On Several Factors
These agencies used information available to the intelligence community.
They also relied on “prior activities of other Russian influence actors, including videos and other disinformation activities.”
Video Is “Targeted Disinformation”
The office of Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, on Thursday called the video “targeted
disinformation”.
Appeal to Elon Musk
Raffensperger appealed directly to billionaire Elon Musk, owner of X, and social media companies, to remove the video from their platforms.
A spokesperson for X said the content violated its policies and “we are taking action against the posts,” without elaborating.
Two hours later, posts containing the video were still visible on the platform.
First Version Of The Video
NewsGuard and Common Cause which track misinformation spread on social media, identified a post by an anonymous account on X.
They said that this post may have been the first version of the video to appear online.
Video Also On Facebook
While the video has circulated widely on X, Reuters also found copies of it on Facebook.
A spokesperson for Facebook parent Meta Platforms said the company was adding a message to the bottom of the video anytime it appears on the service.
The label links to the agencies’ statement and says they assessed the content was “manufactured by Russian influence actors.”
Meta did not immediately respond to a question about why it chose to label rather than remove the content.
Russia Influencing Voters
The U.S. intelligence community has said that Russia is conducting influence operations aimed at U.S. voters.
It said that Russia’s motive is to promote support for Trump.
Russia has denied the accusation.
