CBS News: Bogus hit-and-run story about Vice President Kamala Harris created by Russian troll farm, Microsoft says

[Dennis Donovan]

Link to tweet

CBS News
A false claim that VP Harris was involved in a June 2011 hit-and-run incident that left a 13-year-old girl paralyzed was created by a Russian troll farm, according to a report released by Microsoft.

Bogus hit-and-run story about Vice President Kamala Harris created by Russian troll farm, Microsoft says

By Rhona Tarrant, Erielle Delzer

September 18, 2024 / 12:21 PM EDT / CBS News

A false claim that Vice President Kamala Harris was involved in a June 2011 hit-and-run incident that left a 13-year-old girl paralyzed was created by a Russian troll farm, according to a report released Tuesday by Microsoft.

The report by Microsoft's Threat Analysis Center said the fabricated story was created by a Kremlin-aligned group, dubbed Storm-1516, one of several Russian disinformation networks that Microsoft says is targeting the Harris-Walz campaign in the lead-up to November's presidential election.

The hit-and-run claim surfaced in early September on a website masquerading as a local San Francisco news outlet named KBSF-TV. A five-minute video embedded in the article featured a woman speaking about the alleged incident. Microsoft's report said the woman was a paid actor. The website was created on Aug. 20 and went offline days after it published the claims.

CBS News debunked the hit-and-run story when it first emerged; public records and news reports showed no evidence of the incident. The San Francisco Police Department told CBS News it did not have records of it. A CBS News analysis of a video that accompanied the article found it contained several photos from other unrelated news stories.

/snip

Russian disinfo debunked!

[southmost]

1. the pictures used are confusing

[Dennis Donovan]

4. I copy pics directly from the tweet, and make them a clickable link

I don't choose the pictures used.

[Botany]

2. Same country that is stirring up shit in Springfield, Ohio right now with bomb threats and with

… lies about the C-19 vaccines, the COVID virus, and myocarditis.

Russia/Vlad are conducting a war on America and have been doing it for years now.

[Hekate]

5. As you say, Vlad's conducting war on us. But from what I read here it would be very wrong of us...

…. to retaliate by causing any of Russia’s electronic devices to blow up in the hands of the people who use them to wage war on us. Very very wrong.
(Only slight sarcasm)

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=19473010

[cbabe]

3. Remember who actually did have a fatal car crash...

https://www.npr.org › sections › thetwo-way › 2010 › 04 › laura_bush_opens_up_about_car.html
Laura Bush Opens Up About Deadly 1963 Car Crash - NPR

Apr 28, 2010Revealing heart-breaking details about a car accident she caused as a teenager that left another young person

[UpInArms]

15. That other young person

was her boyfriend at the time 😞

[progressoid]

7. I guarantee it is believed by millions.

They don't trust MSMedia so they won't believe this but they will believe some random website and the subsequent rumors that will linger for years.

[markodochartaigh]

8. Francis Bacon 1600

"Slander boldly, something always sticks."

[Elessar Zappa]

14. Just the MAGAts.

No Kamala supporter is going to change their mind because of Russian trolling, at least not in numbers that would prevent her from winning.

[Linda ladeewolf]

9. A type of swift boating.

There will be more. All they have to do is make it up.

[LauraInLA]

10. Kick.

[SouthBayDem]

11. My immigrant parents watched a San Francisco TV station

called KTSF (independent station targeted to Asian American viewers).

This planted story puts the BS in KBSF.

And having followed VP Harris’s career since her days as SF DA, if something like this really happened it would be all over local news at the time. Obviously didn’t happen.

[Scrivener7]

12. Hang on. Here we go.

[LW1977]

13. CBS News actually did their job for once..

Shocking