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Russian propagandists have manipulated celebrity videos to contain anti-Ukrainian propaganda for their disinformation campaigns. They relied on the popular Cameo platform. Microsoft cybersecurity specialists report this.

But from the beginning:

Cameo – what is it?

Cameo has been offering personalized videos of celebrities such as actors and footballers since 2017. Celebrities can register on the Cameo platform and offer short videos with personal messages such as greetings or congratulations for a certain amount.

For example, a video in which Granit Xhaka congratulates your friend on her birthday costs 107 francs.

Propaganda against Zelensky

An unknown actor linked to Russia has now used the services of Cameo to obtain videos of Elijah Wood, Mike Tyson, Priscilla Presley and other celebrities. This is stated in a report from Microsoft published on Thursday.

The celebrities were unaware that their videos were then manipulated to smear Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The report states:

Pro-Russian social media accounts easily spread the videos. But as if that wasn’t enough, it was also picked up by Russian state media. It was claimed that the video contents were messages directly addressed to President Zelensky.

According to the report, at least seven such videos have surfaced since July. Some of them have been manipulated to appear as if they are clips from TV interviews or a celebrity’s social media account. The aim is to give the impression that the videos are part of a wider campaign to encourage Zelenskiy to seek help for his ‘drug use’. But Zelensky does not use drugs, even though Kremlin officials and Russian state propaganda have long claimed this. However, the strategy of using doctored videos of celebrities is new.

This is how Cameo responds

Cameo told CNN that such videos violated its guidelines. If suspicions are confirmed, Cameo will remove the problematic content and block the customer’s account to prevent something similar from happening in the future.