US intelligence officials have confirmed that Russia is targeting the state of Georgia with presidential election misinformation.
A video purporting to depict voter fraud in Georgia is fake and the work of “Russian influence actors,” U.S. intelligence officials said Friday as they warned that foreign efforts to undermine faith in the integrity of next week’s elections may persist long after votes have been cast.
The announcement that the video was fake represented an effort by the FBI and other federal agencies, four days before Tuesday’s elections, to combat foreign disinformation by calling it out rather than letting it spread for days unchecked. It follows a similar statement last week that also attributed to Russian actors a widely circulated video falsely depicting mail-in ballots for Donald Trump being destroyed in Pennsylvania.
To the surprise of no one, Russia is using Elon Musk’s X platform to spread the disinformation. The fake video that the Russians circulated of Haitian immigrant promising to vote for Kamala Harris multiple times in Georgia was intended to sow doubt about democracy and help Trump spread false claims that the election was stolen from him in Georgia.
The Russians have not found as much fertile ground for their disinformation operation in 2024. The US government is much more vigilant about calling our and stopping disinformation than it was in 2016.
Putin is doing what h can to help Trump in 2o24, but so far he has not been able to undermine democracy in the United States.
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Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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