(FAKE NEWS) Kamala Harris shot endangered rhino in Zambia
What appears to be the latest campaign by Storm-1516 against Kamala Harris as election nears
Even after more than a day, it barely got traction due to sheer absurdity of allegations.
Origins
Story includes a youtube video with an interview with a supposed park ranger Simon Mubanga of North Luangwa National Park. Video was uploaded on 25 September at 12:57 GMT. Video title suggests “North Luangwa Conservation” as a park name, in reality it appears to be a name of conservation program in North Luangwa National Park.
Similarly staged interview was used in at least one prior Storm-1516 campaign.
A story with interview transcript and embedded YouTube video was published on iharare[.]com website. Publication date is listed as 24 September at 02:03 GMT and later was updated at 25 September at 18:03 GMT, supposedly to add the YouTube video after it was uploaded.
iharare[.]com has previously made several publications with Storm-1516 materials, but to our knowledge it wasn’t a primary source of distribution: 1 2
Additionally, story was posted on theinteldrop[.]org, a website affiliated with Gordon Duff. Publication date is listed as 26 September at 14:53 GMT, just before beginning of distribution campaign.
Distribution
Twitter/X
In this campaign, X appears to be a primary platform for distribution.
Earliest publication of campaign was performed by roger_santos7 on X with a link to iharare[.]com on 26 September at 16:09.
Earliest publication with a link to theinteldrop[.]org was done by ANN_News92 and was posted at 16:48 GMT. This account participated in at least one of the prior campaigns by the group.
Other notable publications by accounts connected to prior Storm-1516 campaigns:
26 sept 17:18 GMT x.com/BowesChay/status/1839353800915857623 with link to iharare[.]com. Story was also published on his telegram channel at 17:14 GMT.
27 sept 05:21 GMT x.com/aussiecossack/status/1839535769741840498 with link to theinteldrop[.]org
Telegram
On September 27, story was posted almost simultaneously with links to both iharare[.]com and theinteldrop[.]org on multiple RU Telegram channels which are often involved in distribution campaigns of Storm-1516 narratives:
https://t.me/golosmordora/41221
https://t.me/warhistoryalconafter/186585
https://t.me/sanya_florida/20531
Update 1: MAGAstan publications
Recent publication by NewsGuard covers this campaign and mentions some articles related to this campaign, which were posted on several websites affiliated with John Dougan. Our team was able to identify more than 40 publications on MAGAstan network from October 1.
MAGAstan is a fake media network previously covered by our team, also identified as part of CopyCop network by Recorded Future and is almost certainly affiliated with John Dougan.
Unlike prior fake media websites by John Dougan, MAGAstan was used only once in coordinated disinformation campaigns. And unlike throwaway websites used in more recent Storm-1516 campaigns, which are used as “one site - one campaign”, this network is persistent and is regularly updated with AI-rewritten articles from numerous sources.
Relevant publications:
Conclusion
Considering the abovementioned, we are assuming with high confidence that this is a new campaign by Storm-1516.