Fake videos possibly linked to Russia are targeting these two Democratic Senate candidates

Two Democratic Senate candidates, Sherrod Brown in Ohio and James Talarico in Texas, are facing potential disinformation campaigns linked to Russia as they near the final days of the midterm elections. The videos, believed to be artificially generated, misuse real people's names and photographs to spread false information about the candidates.

In the Ohio race, Sherrod Brown, running against Republican Jon Husted, is targeted by a video that appears to include some AI manipulation. The clip depicts a newscast and includes pictures of Haya Akbik, who interned for Brown several years ago, alongside other former staff members. Akbik, who spoke to The Associated Press, stated that the allegations made about her in the video are "completely made up." She emphasized that the falsehood harms both her and Brown's reputation.

Similarly, in Texas, James Talarico, who is contesting a Senate seat against Republican Ken Paxton, is confronted by a video framed as a direct-to-camera confessional from a former student of Talarico. The video claims that "the most powerful people in the world know they can't beat James Talarico with the truth, so they're slandering him with AI deepfakes, foreign bots, and conspiracy theories to protect their broken, corrupt political system." Talarico's spokesperson, JT Ennis, condemned the actions in a statement.

Tech experts believe that these videos are likely generated or manipulated using artificial intelligence. The video targeting Brown is described as a "fairly low-tech fake," whereas the one aimed at Talarico is more complex and consistent with previous disinformation campaigns released close to an election day.

Social media company X removed the initial posts sharing the videos and suspended the users who violated the platform's rules. However, copies of the videos remain online, shared hundreds of times, which illustrates the difficulty in containing disinformation in the final stages of an election. The resemblance of these videos to clips from a Russian network known as Storm-1516, which targeted former Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, two years ago, suggests that the same network might be behind these recent videos.

Despite the Russian Embassy in Washington's lack of comment on the matter, experts acknowledge the potential threat of such AI-generated content in future elections.