Russian Troll Farm Behind Fake Story About Harris Hit-And-Run Accident, Microsoft Says

A Russian troll farm appears to be behind a fake story spread on social media about Vice President Kamala Harris allegedly being involved in a hit-and-run accident in 2011 that left a 13-year-old girl paralyzed, according to a new report by Microsoft published this week.

The report by the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center, released Tuesday, said Russian influence operations initially struggled to target Harris in the wake of President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 race. However, by late August, they managed to produce and distribute content viewed millions of times, implicating the Democratic presidential nominee and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, in fake conspiracy theories in an effort to hurt her candidacy.

Storm-1516, a Russian troll farm, initially distributed a fake video meant to show Harris supporters attacking a Trump rally attendee in August. The clip was seen millions of times.

A few weeks later, the same group created a video using an on-screen actor who pretended to be the survivor of a fake hit-and-run accident allegedly involving Harris 13 years ago. That clip was included in an article featured in a fake website purporting to belong to a San Francisco news outlet, KBSF-TV. The web page was created shortly before the video’s dissemination and went dark days after circulating the fake story, according to CBS News, which said posts on X, formerly Twitter, amplifying the story got about 7 million views. The story was also shared on other social media sites.

Microsoft researchers also found that a newer Kremlin-aligned group, which previously focused on creating videos around the 2024 Paris Olympics, pivoted to producing fake content to discredit Harris’ campaign, including a clip showing a nonexistent New York City billboard featuring baseless claims about the Democratic presidential candidate’s policies. That post received over 100,000 views on X in the first four hours it was shared after being originally posted on Telegram, the report said.

“As we inch closer to the election, we should expect Russian actors to continue to use cyber proxies and hacktivist groups to amplify their messages through media websites and social channels geared to spread divisive political content, staged videos, and AI-enhanced propaganda,” Microsoft researchers said.

Meanwhile, tech executives from Microsoft, Alphabet and Meta testified on Wednesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee about foreign threats to the 2024 U.S. elections. X declined to send a representative to the hearing.

Brad Smith, the president of Microsoft, told the panel the company identified another “A.I. enhanced” video of Harris earlier in the day, which showed the vice president making comments she didn’t actually make at a recent campaign rally, according to Bloomberg.

Smith also predicted an increased level of threat to the election in the two days leading up to Nov. 5.

“The most perilous moment will come, I think, 48 hours before the election,” Smith said.

Smith cited a similar incident in the lead-up to last year Slovakia’s election when a fake audio clip of one of the top candidates surfaced shortly before voters went to the polls, Bloomberg said.

Earlier this week, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, banned Russian state media organizations, including RT, from its apps over “foreign interference activity.”

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov called the move “unacceptable.”

The U.S. State Department had previously leveled new sanctions on RT, accusing them of “covert influence activities.”