STORY UPDATED: check for updates below.

Not Real FBI

Did the FBI and U.S. Department of Education release a video recommending that U.S. schools close until November 11, 2024, because of a significant increase in the risk of school shootings and riots during the presidential election? No, that's not true: The FBI has called the video "fake" and its contents "false." The U.S. Department of Education also has not advised U.S. schools to close during the election. This video resembles propaganda videos distributed by a known Russian disinformation campaign in the runup to the 2024 U.S. general election. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency have issued a joint statement warning about these "influence operations."

The fake video (archived here) about the supposed school-closure warning (Media Vault archive here) was posted on X by @MarvinHotmai on November 5, 2024. The account has since been suspended for violating X's rules. It was captioned with many hashtags and tags pointing to official U.S. accounts. The caption read:

The FBI, in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Education, is recommending that schools suspend classes until Nov. 11.

@FBI @usedgov @USAGov #USElection2024 @KamalaHQ @realDonaldTrump @CIA #KamlaHarris #Trump2024

(Source: FBI.gov screenshot taken on Wed Nov 6 at 03:14:00 2024 UTC)

The U.S. Department of Education also had made no public announcement on social media or its website (archived here) about the need for schools to close from concern about heightened risk of school shootings or riots. A Google search (archived here) also produced no relevant results.

The video appears to be a production from a Russian disinformation campaign -- dubbed Storm-1516 by researchers at the Clemson University Media Forensics Hub -- that has been impersonating the FBI, producing phony videos and spreading them on social media.

The image of a QR code is one of the features of several posts from this propaganda network, An October 2024 report (archived here) outlines activity from this Russian disinformation campaign, which the researchers have been documenting since August 2023.

In the case of the school-warnings video, the blue QR code (seen above right), showing the French word for verified, "vérifié," appears below a counterfeit of a logo used on official French government websites. VIGINUM is France's VIGINUM cybersecurity agency, which targets "foreign digital interference."

The school-warnings video also features in the upper righthand corner France's official tricolor symbol.

It is unclear why the Russian campaign would use imitations of a French QR code and government logo to vouch for a video that it wants viewers to think is from the FBI. It could just be sloppy work -- on November 2, 2024, Lead Stories debunked a similar instance of a fake verification QR code used with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency watermark.

Lead Stories has debunked several fake videos originating from Storm-1516. In the composite image below, screenshots of three of these posts can be compared for similarities; a fake FBI watermark shows in the upper right corner of each video coupled with an inauthentic QR code falsely vouching for the video's authenticity. All three fake FBI videos finish with the same image on the screen (lower right below) -- a blurred stock image of a wanted poster with a large color seal of the FBI.

(Source: Lead Stories composite image made with X screenshots taken on Sat Nov 02 20:28:15 2024 and Tue Nov 05 19:04:32 2024 UTC)

Earlier on November 5, 2024, the FBI posted a link on X (pictured below) to another press release (archived here) that denounced other examples of such misuse of the agency's name and insignia. Titled, "FBI Statement on Inauthentic Use of Bureau Name, Insignia in Promoting False Election-Related Narratives," this statement mentioned two instances, but more of these false narratives appear every day.

The FBI was made aware of two instances of its name and insignia being misused in promoting false narratives surrounding the election. The first is a fabricated news clip purporting to be a terrorist warning issued by the FBI. The fabricated news clip reports falsely that the FBI purportedly stated that Americans should "vote remotely" due to a high terror threat at polling stations. This video is not authentic and does not accurately represent the current threat posture or polling location safety.

(Source: X screenshot taken on Tue Nov 05 19:09:08 2024 UTC)

On November 4, 2024, the FBI, Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint press release (archived here) that, like previous CISA press releases (here), warned that the intelligence community (IC) has detected specific false narratives on social media intended to heighten unrest during the U.S. elections:

Since our statement on Friday, the IC has been observing foreign adversaries, particularly Russia, conducting additional influence operations intended to undermine public confidence in the integrity of U.S. elections and stoke divisions among Americans. The IC expects these activities will intensify through election day and in the coming weeks, and that foreign influence narratives will focus on swing states.