Russian actors made fake video depicting mail-in ballots for Trump being destroyed, FBI says
Russian actors were behind a widely circulated video falsely depicting mail-in ballots for Donald Trump being destroyed in Pennsylvania, U.S. officials confirmed on Friday.
The video had taken off on social media Thursday but was debunked within three hours by local election officials and law enforcement after members of the public reported it.
Researchers who closely study Russian foreign influence campaigns had previously connected the video to a Russian disinformation network known as Storm-1516 or CopyCop. The network has previously shared numerous videos with false claims about Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz.
The video used a Black actor with a foreign accent — a choice that may be intentional as a way to inflame existing divisions on American soil, according to Josephine Lukito, an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin who has researched Russian disinformation.
It’s a common strategy in fake videos originating in Russia, she said.
“It tends to amplify racism, right?” Lukito said. “There’s already this kind of groundswell of discussion about immigrants that are illegally voting or immigration broadly. Russian disinformation absolutely exploits that.”
https://apnews.com/article/misinformatio...ca96b03288
Russian actors were behind a widely circulated video falsely depicting mail-in ballots for Donald Trump being destroyed in Pennsylvania, U.S. officials confirmed on Friday.
The video had taken off on social media Thursday but was debunked within three hours by local election officials and law enforcement after members of the public reported it.
Researchers who closely study Russian foreign influence campaigns had previously connected the video to a Russian disinformation network known as Storm-1516 or CopyCop. The network has previously shared numerous videos with false claims about Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz.
The video used a Black actor with a foreign accent — a choice that may be intentional as a way to inflame existing divisions on American soil, according to Josephine Lukito, an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin who has researched Russian disinformation.
It’s a common strategy in fake videos originating in Russia, she said.
“It tends to amplify racism, right?” Lukito said. “There’s already this kind of groundswell of discussion about immigrants that are illegally voting or immigration broadly. Russian disinformation absolutely exploits that.”
https://apnews.com/article/misinformatio...ca96b03288
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
