Trump devotee posts fake election news from Russian propagandist
Share
An American blogger claimed on social media that a pro-Kremlin propagandist paid him $100 to post a fake video about the election. He added that he had received several payments.
He told CNN anonymously.
Russia pays American bloggers to publish fakes
A blogger with the nickname @AlphaFox78 on X, who lives in Massachusetts, anonymously told CNN that a pro-Kremlin propagandist paid him $100 to post a fake video of Haitian immigrants claiming to vote in the US presidential election. Previously, this blogger published memes in support of Donald Trump. It should be noted that the blogger has over 650 thousand subscribers on X. He stated that he was asked to publish the video, but he did not check whether the content was true.
"I have no idea where it came from or anything, I'm just someone who shared it," he said.
Propagandist Simeon Boikov bribed a blogger from the United States
The US man said that he was offered cooperation by Simeon Boikov, a well-known Russian propaganda blogger. He paid him $100 to post the video. Another source also confirmed to CNN that Boikov had indeed made several payments to the Massachusetts man.
Documents reviewed by CNN show that Boikov is a registered foreign agent of Russia in Australia, where he works for Russian state media, writing and publishing online in English and Russian. Simeon Boikov has been granted Russian citizenship and is seeking asylum in Sydney.
Interestingly, a previous CNN investigation found that Boikov played a role in Russian disinformation campaigns, including those aimed at the 2024 US presidential election. But there is currently no clear pattern of Boikov's interaction with the Kremlin.
The American blogger also said that the fake video was not the first "collaboration". According to him, there were ten other cases when Boikov paid him $100 for publishing memes and videos on his X page.
"When Boikov's requests then turned to publishing election-related videos, such as fake footage of voter fraud in Georgia, I didn't think anything of it," he said, adding that he did not know that Boikov worked for Russian state media.
After speaking with CNN, AlphaFox deleted the post, which at the time had more than 2.6 million views. The blogger said he regretted spreading Russian disinformation and firmly stated that he was the one who was deceived.
However, deleting the post did not help — other users copied the content and continue to spread it on other social media platforms.
As a reminder, the Office of the Secretary of State of the State of Georgia recently stated that fake news about the election came from Russia, which engaged entire bot farms.
Interestingly, after Maia Sandu won the election in Moldova, Russia launched a large-scale campaign to discredit the politician.
