Enlarge / A visible from the faux documentary “Olympics Has Fallen” produced by Russia-affiliated affect actor Storm-1679. (credit score: Microsoft)
Final yr, a feature-length documentary purportedly produced by Netflix started circulating on Telegram. Titled “Olympics have Fallen” and narrated by a voice with a placing similarity to that of actor Tom Cruise, it sharply criticized the management of the Worldwide Olympic Committee. The slickly produced movie, claiming five-star evaluations from the New York Instances, Washington Submit, and BBC, was shortly amplified on social media. Amongst these seemingly endorsing the documentary had been celebrities on the platform Cameo.
A lately revealed report by Microsoft (PDF) stated the movie was not a documentary, had obtained no such evaluations, and that the narrator’s voice was an AI-produced deep faux of Cruise. It additionally stated the endorsements on Cameo had been faked. The Microsoft Menace Intelligence Report went on to say that the fraudulent documentary and endorsements had been solely one among many elaborate hoaxes created by brokers of the Russian authorities in a year-long affect operation meant to discredit the Worldwide Olympic Committee (IOC) and deter participation and attendance on the Paris Olympics beginning subsequent month.
Different examples of the Kremlin’s ongoing affect operation embody:
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