Last week, a video popped up on social media falsely claiming to show someone ripping up ballots in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Instead of relying on flagging suspected foreign disinformation posts to social media companies, U.S. authorities are declassifying information about foreign election interference in an unprecedented way, seizing web domains and issuing indictments that have exposed the mechanics of Russian and Iranian information warfare, officials and researchers said. U.S. intelligence officials later said Russian “influence actors” were behind the false story. And social media companies, under intense legal and political pressure from Republican critics, have scaled back or scrapped teams in recent years that used to take down inflammatory or conspiratorial content. The combination of homegrown falsehoods about “stolen” election conspiracies, surging foreign disinformation campaigns and a laissez-faire approach by tech firms threatens to undermine the foundations of American democracy, experts and lawmakers said.

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Persons: “, ”, Paul Kolbe, ” Kolbe, haven’t, Biden, Yuri Kadobnov, Donald Trump’s, Matthew Olsen, — we’ve, Bret Schafer, ” Schafer, Esteban Ponce de, Tim Walz, Walz, Trump, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, ” Jamieson Organizations: FBI, Justice Department, Central Eurasia, CIA, Media, Russia, Getty, Kremlin, Alliance, Securing Democracy, NBC, Atlantic Council, Forensic Research, Democratic, Gallup, Republican, Democracies, University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication Locations: Bucks County , Pennsylvania, Russia, Iran, China, Cuba, Moscow, Tehran, Tennessee, United States, AFP, Esteban Ponce de León, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Russian, Vietnam