Russia is targeting the Paris Olympics with a disinformation campaign that includes deploying a fake Tom Cruise to narrate a documentary critical of the organization after the games, according to a new report from Microsoft.
Microsoft said a network of groups linked to Russia are waging “malicious influence campaigns” against France, Emmanuel Macron, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Paris Games with the event less than 80 days away. Russia has been banned from the 2024 Olympics, although a small number of Russian athletes may compete as neutrals.
Cruise’s fake video, which appeared on messaging platform Telegram last year, is called Olympics Has Fallen and uses AI-generated audio of the movie star’s voice to present a “strange, meandering scenario” that disparages IOC. The documentary, whose title matches Gerard Butler’s action film Olympus Has Fallen, also falsely claims to be produced by Netflix and has been promoted with fake five-star reviews from the New York Times and the BBC.
“The video … clearly signaled that the content creators devoted significant time to the project and demonstrated more skill than most influencer campaigns we observe,” Microsoft’s threat analysis center said in a report published Monday.
The video was made by a Kremlin-linked group called Storm-1679, which has in the past tricked American actors, including Elijah Wood, into recording messages on Cameo, a website where people can pay celebrities for video messages personalized, which then turned into anti. – Ukrainian propaganda.
Storm-1679’s Olympics campaign over the past year includes a collection of videos spreading fear of violence during the games, which take place from July 26 to August 11. The group has published fake news reports that Parisians are buying property insurance in anticipation of terror attacks and that a quarter of tickets have been returned due to terror fears. Both clips imitated the popular broadcasters Euro News and France24.
Social media accounts linked to Storm-1679 have shown images they claim represent graffiti in Paris threatening violence against Israelis attending the games. Some of the images also referenced the attacks on the 1972 Munich Olympics by Palestinian terrorists, in which 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team died.
“Microsoft did not observe any independent confirmation that the graffiti physically existed, suggesting that the images were digitally created,” the report said.
Russia has a long tradition of seeking to undercut the games, the tech firm said, including when the Soviet Union boycotted the 1984 event in Los Angeles and distributed divisive leaflets to Olympic committees in countries including Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka and South Korea.
Another Russian group, known as Storm-1099 or “Doppelganger”, has created French-language fake news sites claiming corruption at the IOC and possible violence in Paris. Mock versions of the newspapers Le Parisien and Le Point also portray Macron as a political figure indifferent to the difficulties facing French citizens.
Microsoft said it expects Russian efforts to expand into other languages and attempt to flood social media through automated accounts, while the use of generative AI – systems that produce highly persuasive text, video, images and audio – is also likely to grows.
Last month, Microsoft released a report documenting similar Chinese efforts to interfere in elections in South Korea, India and the US by using AI-generated material to deliver false information. The country’s propaganda apparatus often uses fake news anchors to spread misinformation.
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Image Source : www.theguardian.com
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