How a Russian Attack on the Midterms Deepfaked Mother Jones
A few days ago, an X user called роман—which is Russian for the name “Roman”—posted a purported Mother Jones video that reported that the Democratic National Committee paid a whopping $259 million to Mark Thompson, the head of CNN, so the cable news network would promote “gender transition among children.” The video—falsely branded with a […]
On an X platform, a Russian user known as "роман" posted a forged Mother Jones video claiming that the Democratic National Committee had paid CNN's chief, Mark Thompson, $259 million to promote "gender transition among children." The video falsely displayed Mother Jones' branding and claimed CNN had broadcast 8,970 shows promoting gender transition.
It featured Mother Jones editor-in-chief Clara Jeffery celebrating the "great gift from Anonymous," the hacker collective behind the leak. Within a day, the video garnered 155,000 views on X and 50,000 on another X account. The account's bot-like behavior, zero followers, and lack of prior posts signaled its suspicious nature. Disinformation experts suspected the video's inflated reach was artificially inflated.
In the past two weeks, a Russian disinformation network dubbed Storm-1679 or Matryoshka has been spreading false election-related material on US social media, including fake celebrity videos casting Democrats in a negative light. This latest operation was identified by anonymous activists tracking Russian influence operations. Prior to this, Matryoshka had spread fake CNN stories alleging corruption among Democratic senators, targeting journalists, and sowing discord about Russian disinformation.
In 2024, the network placed false anti-Democrat messages in millions of Americans' social media feeds, aiming to sway the midterm elections in favor of Donald Trump and the GOP.
Written by urgent.news from Mother Jones's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
