NEW YORK: Foreign adversaries have shown continued determination to influence the US election — and there are signs their activity will intensify as Election Day nears, Microsoft said in a report Wednesday.
Russian operatives are doubling down on fake videos to smear Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign, while Chinese-linked social media campaigns are maligning down-ballot Republicans who are critical of China, the company’s threat intelligence arm said Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Iranian actors who allegedly sent emails aimed at intimidating US voters in 2020 have been surveying election-related websites and major media outlets, raising concerns they could be preparing for another scheme this year, the tech giant said.
The report serves as a warning – building on others from US intelligence officials – that as the nation enters this critical final stretch and begins counting ballots, the worst influence efforts may be yet to come. US officials say they remain confident that election infrastructure is secure enough to withstand any attacks from American adversaries. Still, in a tight election, foreign efforts to influence voters are raising concern.
Microsoft noted that some of the disinformation campaigns it tracks received little authentic engagement from US audiences, but others have been amplified by unwitting Americans, exposing thousands to foreign propaganda in the final weeks of voting.
Russia, China and Iran have all rejected claims that they are seeking to meddle with the US election.
“The presidential elections are the United States’ domestic affairs. China has no intention and will not interfere in the US election,” the Chinese Embassy said in a statement.
“Having already unequivocally and repeatedly announced, Iran neither has any motive nor intent to interfere in the US election; and, it therefore categorically repudiates such accusations,” read a statement from Iran’s mission to the United Nations.
A message left with the Russian Embassy was not immediately returned on Wednesday.
The report reveals an expanding landscape of coordinated campaigns to advance adversaries’ priorities as global wars and economic concerns raise the stakes for the US election around the world. It details a trend also seen in the 2016 and 2020 elections of foreign actors covertly fomenting discord among American voters, furthering a divide in the electorate that has left the nation almost evenly split just 13 days before voting concludes.
“History has shown that the ability of foreign actors to rapidly distribute deceptive content can significantly impact public perception and electoral outcomes,” Clint Watts, general manager of the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center, said in a news release. “With a particular focus on the 48 hours before and after Election Day, voters, government institutions, candidates and parties must remain vigilant to deceptive and suspicious activity online.”
The report adds to previous findings from Microsoft and US intelligence that suggest the Kremlin is committed to lambasting Harris’ character online, a sign of its preference for another Donald Trump presidency.
Russian actors have spent recent months churning out both AI-generated content and more rudimentary spoofs and staged videos spreading disinformation about Harris, Microsoft’s analysts found.
Among the fake videos were a staged clip of a park ranger impersonator claiming Harris killed an endangered rhinoceros in Zambia, as well as a video sharing baseless allegations about her running mate Tim Walz, which US intelligence officials also attributed to Russia this week. Morgan Finkelstein, national security spokeswoman for the Harris campaign, condemned Russia’s efforts.
Another Russian influence actor has been producing fake election-related videos spoofing American organizations from Fox News to the FBI and Wired magazine, according to the report.
China over the last several months has focused on down-ballot races, and on general efforts to sow distrust and democratic dissatisfaction. A Chinese influence actor widely known as Spamouflage has been using fake social media users to attack down-ballot Republicans who have publicly denounced China, according to Microsoft’s analysts.
Candidates targeted have included Rep. Barry Moore of Alabama, Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, and Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, all of whom are running for reelection, the report said. The group also has attacked Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida.
All four politicians sent emailed statements condemning China’s aggression against American political candidates and its efforts to weaken democracy.
In its statement, the Chinese embassy said US officials, politicians and media “have accused China of using news websites and social media accounts to spread so-called disinformation in the US. Such allegations are full of malicious speculations against China, which China firmly opposes.”
Iran, which has spent the 2024 campaign going after Trump with disinformation as well as hacking into the former president’s campaign, hasn’t been stymied by ongoing tension in the Middle East, according to the Microsoft report.
Quite the opposite, groups linked to Iran have weaponized divided opinions on the Israel-Hamas War to influence American voters, the analysts found. For example, an Iranian operated persona took to Telegram and X to call on Americans to sit out the elections due to the candidates’ support for Israel.
Microsoft’s report also said it observed an Iranian group compromising an account of a notable Republican politician who had a different account targeted in June. The company would not name the individual but said it was the same person who it had referenced in August as a “former presidential candidate.”
The report also warned that the same Iranian group that allegedly posed as members of the far-right Proud Boys in intimidating emails to voters in 2020 has been scouting swing-state election-related websites and media outlets in recent months. The behavior could “suggest preparations for more direct influence operations as Election Day nears,” Watts said.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations said in a statement that the allegations in the report “are fundamentally unfounded, and wholly inadmissible.”
Even as Russia, China and Iran try to influence voters, intelligence officials said Tuesday there is still no indication they are plotting significant attacks on election infrastructure as a way to disrupt the outcome.
If they tried, improvements to election security means there is no way they could alter the results, Jen Easterly, director of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, told The Associated Press earlier this month.
Intelligence officials on Tuesday also warned that Russia and Iran may try to encourage violent protests in the US after next month’s election, setting the stage for potential complications in the post-election period.
Efforts by Russia, Iran and China to sway US voters may escalate, new Microsoft report says
https://arab.news/nak5u
Efforts by Russia, Iran and China to sway US voters may escalate, new Microsoft report says
- Russia, China and Iran have all rejected claims that they are seeking to meddle with the US election
Los Angeles Times editor resigns after newspaper withholds presidential endorsement
Mariel Garza told the Columbia Journalism Review in an interview that she resigned because the Times was remaining silent on the contest in “dangerous times.”
“I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not OK with us being silent,” Garza said. “In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up.”
In a post on the social media platform X that did not directly mention the resignation, LA Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong said the board was asked to do a factual analysis of the policies of Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump during their time at the White House.
Additionally, “The board was asked to provide (its) understanding of the policies and plans enunciated by the candidates during this campaign and its potential effect on the nation in the next four years,” he wrote. “In this way, with this clear and non-partisan information side-by-side, our readers could decide who would be worthy of being president for the next four years.”
Soon-Shiong, who bought the paper in 2018, said the board “chose to remain silent and I accepted their decision.”
Garza told the Columbia Journalism Review that the board had intended to endorse Harris and she had drafted the outline of a proposed editorial.
A LA Times spokesperson did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment.
Trump’s campaign jumped on Garza’s departure, saying the state’s largest newspaper had declined to endorse the Democratic ticket after backing Harris in her previous races for US Senate and state attorney general.
Her exit comes about 10 months after then-Executive Editor Kevin Merida left the paper in what was called a “mutually agreed” upon departure. At the time, the news organization said it had fallen well short of its digital subscriber goals and needed a revenue boost to sustain the newsroom and its digital operations.
Israel accuses 6 Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza of being Palestinian militants
- Al Jazeera said the accusations were “fabricated” and “part of a wider pattern of hostility” toward the pan-Arab network
RAMALLAH, West Bank: The Israeli army on Wednesday accused six Al Jazeera journalists covering the war in Gaza of also being current or former paid fighters for Palestinian militant groups. Al Jazeera rejected the claims.
Israel cited documents it purportedly found in Gaza, and other intelligence it gathered, in making the accusations against the journalists, all of whom are Palestinian men. It said four are or have been affiliated with Hamas, and two with Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Al Jazeera said the accusations were “fabricated” and “part of a wider pattern of hostility” toward the pan-Arab network. It said the claims were “a blatant attempt to silence the few remaining journalists in the region, thereby obscuring the harsh realities of the war from audiences worldwide.”
The Associated Press has been unable to independently verify the authenticity of the documents Israel posted online to support its claims.
Al Jazeera is based in the energy-rich nation of Qatar, where many senior Hamas officials are based. The Gulf Arab country, which funds Al Jazeera, also has been a key player in Gaza ceasefire negotiations, along with the US and Egypt.
Al Jazeera journalists Anas Al-Sharif, Hossam Shabat, Ismael Abu Omar, and Talal Arrouki were accused by Israel of ties to Hamas. Ashraf Saraj and Alaa Salameh were accused of ties to Islamic Jihad.
The men have held various roles, according to documents Israel cited — sniper, infantry soldier, fighter, captain, training coordinator and “propaganda.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists released a statement on Wednesday that was critical of Israel, which it said “has repeatedly made similar unproven claims without producing credible evidence.”
In July, after an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City killed two Al Jazeera journalists, including Ismail Al Ghoul, Israel “produced a similar document, which contained contradictory information, showing that Al Ghoul, born in 1997, received a Hamas military ranking in 2007 – when he would have been 10 years old,” the committee said in its statement.
Militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad led last year’s attack on Israel that killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took some 250 hostages into Gaza. They have been fighting alongside each other against Israeli troops in Gaza for the past year.
In January, Israel detailed allegations against 12 employees of a United Nations agency that it says were involved in the Hamas attack on Israel last year that ignited the war in Gaza. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, or UNRWA, subsequently fired at least 21 staffers for their roles in the attack. UNRWA has been the main supplier of food, water and shelter to civilians in Gaza during the war.
Four Al Jazeera journalists have been killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza over the past 12 months, according to the network. Several of the dead later have been accused by Israel of being members of either Hamas or Islamic Jihad, accusations rejected by the Qatari outlet.
In May, after an Israeli court ordered the closure of Al Jazeera’s operations and broadcasts within Israel, police raided a hotel room in East Jerusalem from where the network had been broadcasting live images.
It was the first time Israel had ever shuttered a foreign news outlet. Four months later, Israel raided Al Jazeera’s office in the Palestinian-governed West Bank city of Ramallah, shutting down the bureau there.
Several of those named by Israel on Wednesday, including Al-Sharif, have become mainstay figures of the outlet’s 24-hour live coverage of Gaza. They have acquired celebrity-like status among Palestinians and in other countries across the Middle East.
Al Jazeera is one of a handful of news organizations still broadcasting daily from the besieged enclave.
The documents and intelligence Israel released Wednesday purportedly show the rank, role, enlistment date, and battalion of each of the six Al Jazeera journalists.
At least 128 journalists have been killed in Gaza, the West Bank, Israel, and Lebanon since last October, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. They include 123 Palestinians, two Israelis and three Lebanese.
Israel has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians in Gaza since the war began, according to the local health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and militants but says more than half of the dead are women and children.
Even before the war, tensions between Al Jazeera and Israel ran high. Israeli forces shot and killed Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American journalist, in May 2022 as she reported on a story in the West Bank.
Israel isn’t the only critic of Al Jazeera. The US singled out the broadcaster during its occupation of Iraq after its 2003 invasion toppled dictator Saddam Hussein, and for airing videos of the late Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, who orchestrated the Sept. 11, 2001 attack against the US
Al Jazeera has been closed or blocked by other governments in the Middle East. In 2013, Egyptian authorities seeking to crush mass protests against President Muhammad Mursi raided a luxury hotel used by Al Jazeera.
US charges IRGC official, others in Iran-backed plot to assassinate journalist
- Brigadier General Ruhollah Bazghandi allegedly plotted to kidnap and assassinate an Iranian dissident, believed to be journalist and activist Masih Alinejad
WASHINGTON: The United States issued fresh charges over the attempted Tehran plot to kidnap and assassinate an Iranian-American journalist in New York, indicting an Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) official among others in the case, according to a court document on Tuesday.
US prosecutors have previously charged other suspects in the case, including one man in 2022 and two more in January 2023. Tuesday’s filing did not name the alleged victim, but one of the previously charged suspects in the case was arrested for having a rifle outside the Brooklyn home of journalist and activist Masih Alinejad.
“Today’s indictment exposes the full extent of Iran’s plot to silence an American journalist for criticizing the Iranian regime,” said US Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray
The IRGC official, Ruhollah Bazghandi, was a brigadier general who previously served as chief of the corps’ counterintelligence department, according to an indictment unsealed in federal court in Brooklyn.
Bazghandi was previously sanctioned by the US Treasury Department. Prosecutors said that Bazghandi’s Internet activity, as well as that of three other individuals whose names were unsealed on Tuesday, pointed to their involvement in multiple assassination plots.
Bazghandi and the other newly charged defendants are based in Iran and remain at large, prosecutors said. The man arrested outside Alinejad’s home, Khalid Mehdiyev, and another man allegedly involved in the plot, Rafat Amirov, are in US custody and have pleaded not guilty to murder-for-hire charges.
Prosecutors have said that the defendants had plotted to lure Alinejad out of her house by asking her for flowers from her garden then gun her down.
Hong Kong bars services like WhatsApp and Google Drive from government computers
- Government workers will still be allowed to use the services from personal devices at work
- Companies have adopted similar policies due to increasing risks of data leaks and cybersecurity challenges
HONG KONG: The Hong Kong government is barring most civil servants from using popular apps like WhatsApp, WeChat and Google Drive on their work computers due to potential security risks.
The latest IT security guidelines from the Digitial Policy Office have many civil servants complaining about added inconvenience. Government workers will still be allowed to use the services from personal devices at work, and can get exceptions to the ban with approval from a manager.
Information technology experts said companies have adopted similar policies due to increasing risks of data leaks and cybersecurity challenges.
Sun Dong, Secretary for Innovation, Technology and Industry, said on a radio program Tuesday that the ban is needed as hacking is becoming a more serious problem. He said the governments of the United States and China have also adopted stringent measures for their internal computer systems.
A civil servant surnamed Lee, who requested anonymity because she was not authorized to speak to media, said her office often uses cloud storage services to exchange large files with vendors outside the government.
Francis Fong, the honorary president of the Hong Kong Information Technology Federation, said officials told him that the policy aims to prevent malware from bypassing its firewall through encrypted messages. He added that it could also address issues with data breaches.
Anthony Lai, director of VX Research Limited, a cybersecurity firm based in Hong Kong and Britain, said the government’s approach is appropriate due to low cybersecurity awareness among some staff and a lack of comprehensive internal monitoring systems.
Earlier this year, data breaches at various Hong Kong government departments compromised the personal information of at least tens of thousands of people and sparked concerns.
Trump will conduct an interview with Joe Rogan for his podcast
Former President Donald Trump will conduct an interview with Joe Rogan for his popular podcast on Friday.
That’s according to a person familiar with the plans who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to confirm the interview.
Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, and Rogan have a complicated history. While the two shook hands and spoke briefly at a UFC fight, Trump criticized Rogan after he said that then-candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. was the only one running who made sense to him.
“It will be interesting to see how loudly Joe Rogan gets BOOED the next time he enters the UFC Ring??? MAGA2024,” Trump wrote on his social media site in August.
Rogan later clarified that his comments weren’t an endorsement of Kennedy. Kennedy ended up suspending his bid and endorsing Trump.
Both Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, have appeared on a slew of popular podcasts as Election Day grows closer. Trump’s appearances are typically aimed at young men.
