Report examines Indian consultants’ role in hidden election campaigns
Politics · First reported 2 Nov, 02:08 · Updated 02:34
Al Jazeera reports that Indian consultants and social media accounts have supported campaigns abroad through covert online messaging, including posts backing Haley Stevens in Michigan. The report describes how the work is organized and paid for, and the risks and platform-rule violations involved.
- Researchers identified at least 28 X accounts sharing videos supporting Haley Stevens’s Democratic primary campaign; Al Jazeera found at least 15 were posting from India.
- Indian consultants described using shadow accounts, hired pages and targeted ads to distribute campaign content, sometimes in ways that violate platform policies.
- The report also describes opaque cross-border payments and the 2022 disappearance and deaths of two Indian consultants working on William Ruto’s Kenyan campaign.
Summary written by Lux AI from 2 articles
Key facts
- Accounts identified
- At least 28 X accounts shared videos supporting Haley Stevens; at least 15 were posting from India.
- Views
- The accounts garnered more than seven million views, according to researchers cited in the report.
- Kenya campaign
- Rajan Kumar said he was paid about $7 a day for work on William Ruto’s 2022 presidential campaign.
- Haley Stevens
- Stevens lost the August 4 Michigan Democratic Senate primary to Abdul El-Sayed, the report says.
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