Notorious propaganda unit likely spread ‘wild and baseless’ Tim Walz abuse claims: report

A notorious Russian-backed propaganda unit with a history of pushing Kremlin talking points through fake whistleblower videos and deepfakes is the likely culprit behind a sex abuse smear campaign aimed at Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, according to a report in Wired.

The publication on Monday said it conducted an analysis using “several deepfake detector tools” to trace the origins of a fake Walz video that spread rapidly on X last week to being AI-generated. The video, which purports to show a former student of Walz detailing abuse claims during his days as a teacher, reached over 4.3 million views before it was deleted.

And, according to several specialists following the disinformation campaign against the Democratic vice presidential nominee, the latest disinformation campaign “is tied to a network called Storm-1516, which has been linked to, among other things, a previous effort that falsely claimed Vice President Kamala Harris perpetrated a hit-and-run in San Francisco in 2011. Storm-1516 has a long history of posting fake whistleblower videos, and often deepfake videos, to push Kremlin talking points to the West,” Wired reported.

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The publication notes that Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) has repeated at least one of the false narratives peddled by the propaganda unit, which NBC News reported is also responsible for pushing “at least 50 false narratives in this manner since last fall, which comes amid a broader Russian government effort to disrupt next month’s election with the aim of helping former president Donald Trump return to the White House,” according to Wired.

The spread of the “wild and baseless” abuse claims against Walz has been amplified around MAGA world, but Wired noted that last week’s release of the deepfake video by "a prominent anonymous QAnon-promoting account" was the first time the claims went viral.

A co-director at Clemson University’s Media Forensics Hub told the publication “he immediately recognized this tactic as part of Russia’s well-established disinformation playbook.”

“There is little doubt this is Storm-1516,” Darren Linvill told Wired, which added that the network was uncovered last fall by Linvill's team.