A former Florida sheriff who moved to Russia amid an FBI investigation is a Kremlin-backed propagandist responsible for viral deepfake videos and misinformation targeting Kamala Harris’s campaign, according to European intelligence documents reviewed by the Washington Post.

The GRU, Russia’s military intelligence service, gave funding to John Mark Dougan, the operator of several fake news websites. According to documents reviewed by the Post, Dugan was responsible for several websites that seemingly published fake local news, including DC Weekly, Chicago Chronicle, and Atlanta Observer.

  • @[email protected]
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    1623 hours ago

    I’d be shocked that this strategy could work, except that I am aware that a Republican politician can say and do pretty much what they want with minor repercussions, and a Dem politician could be deepfaked as a talking meatloaf that shoot eyeball lasers and Jesus and be summarily executed in the Supreme Court. When people choose to be ridiculous, you get a ridiculous society.

    • @iAvicenna
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      521 hours ago

      well I mean they also likely do propaganda that supports third party candidates which is much more likely to work