FBI warns of two fake election videos

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has warned of two fake videos circulating online that aim to cast doubt on the US presidential election – the latest in a series of warnings from top officials.

BBC Verify found evidence linking the videos to a much larger, Russia-based operation that has produced hundreds of fakes targeting the election in recent months.

In a post on X Saturday, the FBI said the two videos spread rumors about the ballot and about Doug Emhoff, the husband of Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris.

The fake videos, which pretend to be from the FBI and include the agency’s logo, did not receive a large amount of views from real people on X.

“These videos are not authentic, are not from the FBI, and the content they depict is false,” FBI statement said.

“Attempts to deceive the public with false content about FBI operations undermine our democratic process and are intended to erode trust in the electoral system.”

The content of the clips as described by the FBI exactly matches videos that are part of a batch of more than 300 found by BBC Verify since the start of the year, as part of an investigation carried out with online analytics firm Logically.

The videos use compelling graphics and text to resemble content from US government agencies as well as more than 50 news organizations – including the BBC, France 24 and Fox News.

The videos have been posted online almost daily for months and have recently focused on the US election, including clips promoting false claims about Harris and messages about unrest and “civil war”.

CheckFirst – an online analytics firm based in Finland, which independently investigated the network behind the videos – traced them to a Russian marketing agency and a Russian IP address.

“We can link the operation to Russia thanks to some assets that we know were produced by a Russian company,” said Guillaume Kuster, CheckFirst’s CEO.

“The other source of evidence is a data set we accessed which proves that one of the machines used to send emails (by the group) was located in Russia.”

In addition, videos produced by the operation have circulated widely on Russian-language Telegram channels.

CheckFirst found that the style, messages and themes of the videos are consistent with other operations linked to the Kremlin, an assessment supported by BBC Verify research.

However, it is unclear who is running the operation and whether it is being funded by the Russian government.

The Russian embassy in Washington has said in a statement that allegations of election interference by the country are “groundless”.

“All insinuations about ‘Russian collusion’ are malicious slander, invented for use in the internal political struggles of the United States.”

According to X’s metrics, the clips have been viewed tens of thousands of times, but they are posted by accounts with few followers and attract very few comments – telltale signs that the view count is being boosted by fake “bot” accounts.

The FBI declined to comment on the operation, but along with agencies, the bureau has issued two other alerts in recent days about Russia-related influence networks.

On Friday, three US agencies, including the FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency stated that a viral video that “falsely depicted individuals claiming to be from Haiti” was made by “Russian influencers”.

Last week, intelligence agencies said a video purporting to show a poll worker destroying mail-in ballots marked for Donald Trump in Pennsylvania was “manufactured and enhanced” by Russians.