Iran steps up influence campaign aimed at US voters with fake news sites, Microsoft says

CNN —

Iranian operatives have ramped up their attempts to influence and monitor the US presidential election by creating fake news outlets targeting liberal and conservative voters and by trying to hack an unnamed presidential campaign, Microsoft said in research published late Thursday.

One of the phony news sites allegedly created by Iranian operatives called former President Donald Trump an “opioid-pilled elephant in the MAGA china shop” and a “raving mad litigiosaur,” Microsoft researchers said.

Another fake Iran-backed outlet describes itself as a “trusted source for conservative news” in Savannah, Georgia, and focuses on LGBTQ issues and gender reassignment, according to Microsoft. Neither site has gained much traction on social media, but that could change as the election draws nearer, according to Microsoft.

The report – compiled from open-source materials and Microsoft’s vast supply of internal data – offers some of the clearest public examples yet of what US intelligence officials described last month as an ongoing covert social media campaign by Iran to undercut Trump’s candidacy and to increase “social discord” in the US ahead of the November election.

The report also underscores how the number of foreign actors trying to sow divisions around US elections has continued to grow since the Kremlin’s sweeping effort to influence the 2016 election.

The Iranians have “laid the groundwork for influence campaigns on trending election-related topics and begun to activate these campaigns in an apparent effort to stir up controversy or sway voters – especially in swing states,” Clint Watts, general manager of the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center, said in a blog post.

A hacking group linked with Iran’s Islamic