The Federal Bureau of Investigation mentioned Tuesday it was conscious of two cases of its identify and insignia getting used to unfold misinformation surrounding the 2024 presidential election.
The movies have been amongst plenty of fabricated clips mimicking information organizations and officers circulated on-line on Monday, spreading false details about safety threats and election integrity as tens of tens of millions of Individuals head to the polls. The movies have been possible created by a Russian disinformation group, researchers say.
Two movies, created to seem like they have been launched by the FBI, made false claims about voter fraud, alleging that the administration of 5 prisons in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona, had rigged inmate voting and colluded with a political get together. The movies are usually not genuine, and their contents are false, the FBI mentioned.
Different fabricated movies have been shared in latest days. One fabricated video, created to seem like a report from CBS Information, falsely mentioned the FBI was advising folks to “vote remotely” as a result of a possible terror assault. No such warning has been issued by U.S. officers and no such report has been produced by CBS Information. The account that posted the video on the social media platform X was suspended on Monday afternoon.
“This video is just not genuine and doesn’t precisely symbolize the present risk posture or polling location security,” the FBI mentioned in a assertion Tuesday.
One other video was fabricated to seem like it was produced by Fox Information.
The movies have been possible created by the identical Russian disinformation group that launched two extra fabricated FBI movies in latest days, based on Antibot4Navalny, a collective of researchers that tracks on-line Russian disinformation.
The group has a historical past of mimicking worldwide information retailers and U.S. authorities entities. Lots of their posts embrace QR codes that hyperlink to respectable information retailers to make the posts seem genuine. The group printed related false claims about threats forward of the Olympics.
“Election integrity is amongst our highest priorities, and the FBI is working carefully with state and native legislation enforcement companions to reply to election threats and defend our communities as Individuals train their proper to vote,” the FBI mentioned Tuesday. “Makes an attempt to deceive the general public with false content material about FBI risk assessments and actions purpose to undermine our democratic course of and erode belief within the electoral system.”
