Fake Photo of Harris in McDonald’s Gear Cited by Liberals and Conservatives
PLUS: Pennsylvania Emerges as Misinformation Hotspot; Pro-Kremlin Trolls Flood U.S. News Comment Sections
Welcome to Reality Check, your inside look at how misinformation online is undermining trust — and who’s behind it.
Special Edition: The 2024 Presidential Election
Today:
Fast food fight: Doctored photo of Harris in McDonald’s uniform cited by both liberals and conservatives
Pennsylvania becomes ground zero for election misinformation
Pro-Kremlin trolls hijack western news comment sections ahead of U.S. election
Fake UAE accounts flood X with divisive claims on U.S. election eve
And more …
Today’s newsletter was edited by Jack Brewster, Eric Effron, and Sofia Rubinson.
BUT FIRST:
Misinformation Quiz: Want to see how well you can distinguish fact from fiction? Select whether you think this narrative is real or fake to test your misinformation spotting skills. Scroll to the bottom to see if you were correct with NewsGuard’s fact check!
1. Liberals and Conservatives Share Doctored Harris McDonald’s Photo to Push Conflicting False Narratives
By Sarah Komar
What happened: A doctored image of Kamala Harris in a McDonald’s uniform circulating widely on X is being used by both liberal and conservatives to push their agendas.
Pro-Harris users are sharing a digitally manipulated image as evidence that Harris worked at McDonald’s during college, while pro-Trump users are spreading the false claim that the Harris campaign created the fabricated image as proof of her employment.
Neither is true. The image is fake, but it was created by a pro-Trump user.
Context: Harris has said that in 1983, she worked at a McDonald’s in Alameda, California, the summer after her freshman year at Howard University. Donald Trump has repeatedly asserted that Harris lied about her stint at the fast-food joint. There is no conclusive evidence proving or disproving Harris’ claim that she worked there.
A closer look: The photo was shared by pro-Harris users following Trump’s campaign event at a McDonald’s restaurant in Feasterville, Pennsylvania.
“Proof Kamala Harris worked at McDonald’s and was raised middle class. Take that MAGA!” liberal X user @Sarcasmcat24 stated alongside the doctored image, receiving 45,000 views and 200 likes.
Across the aisle, pro-Trump users claimed Democrats, or the Harris campaign, created the image as false proof to bolster the claim that Harris worked at McDonald’s.
“Kamala Harris’ campaign is so desperate they’ve now resorted to photoshopping her into someone else’s old McDonald’s uniform. Only problem is, online sleuths have found the original photo. … Fkn frauds!” stated conservative X user @LivePDDave1, who garnered 180,000 views and 5,500 likes.
Actually: The image is fabricated, fact-checking organization Snopes (NewsGuard Trust Score: 100/100) reported and NewsGuard confirmed.
The doctored photo was created by pro-Trump user @TheInfiniteDude, who told Snopes he created it with AI. The account first shared the image in an Oct. 24, 2024, X post with the caption, “This is fake.”
The image was created by superimposing Harris’ face onto the body of a former McDonald’s manager in Canada named Suzanne Bernier, who died in 2007.
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2. Claims of Voter Fraud in Pennsylvania Spike in Lead-Up to Election Day
By McKenzie Sadeghi, Sofia Rubinson, Coalter Palmer, and Chiara Vercellone
The most fiercely contested battleground state in the U.S. is the target of five recent viral false claims identified by NewsGuard.
What happened: In the past week alone, NewsGuard has debunked claims about Pennsylvania ballots being destroyed; 180,000 Amish registering to vote; a Pennsylvania television station inadvertently airing the “official” results; a state election official dumping fraudulent voter registration forms in Luzerne County; and ineligible voters cutting a voting line.
A closer look: Below, a rundown of the five false claims:
Claim: A video shows early mail-in ballots with votes for Donald Trump being ripped apart in Bucks County, Pennsylvania (see video below).
Actually: The video is fake and appears to be part of a Russian influence operation that regularly fabricates and misrepresents videos. The Bucks County Republican Committee said the video contains multiple inconsistencies indicating that it is fake, including discrepancies in the ballot envelope color, the lack of a return address on the envelopes, and the low quality of the paper.
Claim: 180,000 Amish people registered to vote in Pennsylvania ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
Actually: This is a statistical impossibility, as there are only 92,600 Amish living in Pennsylvania, including minors who are ineligible to vote.
Claim: In a broadcast on Oct. 27, 2024, Pennsylvania television station WNEP shared the state’s presidential results showing a Kamala Harris win. This is proof that the results are predetermined, and the election is rigged.
Actually: WNEP (Trust Score: 95/100), an ABC affiliate in Scranton, said in a statement that a graphic was aired accidentally, as part of an election night test run, and does not represent actual voting results.
Claim: A former election official submitted numerous fraudulent voter registration forms in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania.
Actually: The county’s Republican district attorney investigated and found that the 20 to 30 forms submitted by a former elections employee, who now works for progressive voting rights organization In This Together NEPA, were all legitimate.
Claim: A video shows ineligible voters cutting in line to cast ballots in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.
Actually: According to a news release from Allegheny County Division of Elections, the video shows a “brief conversation between voters, their translators, and a County employee” at a polling place in the Pittsburgh suburb of Bethel Park. Elderly or disabled voters in this group were allowed to enter the polling place and sit down, an accommodation granted to all elderly or disabled voters in Allegheny County, the news release stated.
If you would like to learn more about any of the false claims described above, NewsGuard has debunked these claims and more on its Election Misinformation Monitoring Center.
2024 U.S. Election Misinformation Monitoring Center
Our team of analysts is keeping you up to date as we cover misinformation surrounding this year’s U.S. presidential election. See below for the latest misinformation claims we’ve identified, and visit NewsGuard’s 2024 U.S. Election Misinformation Monitoring Center for detailed debunks of each claim.
MYTH: 180,000 Amish people registered to vote in Pennsylvania in 2024
MYTH: A video shows ballots with votes for Donald Trump being ripped up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania
MYTH: In September 2024, the Pentagon gave the military unprecedented authority to use lethal force on U.S. citizens
MYTH: An image shows a young Kamala Harris in a McDonald’s uniform
MYTH: A video shows a Democratic Party worker screaming at a child
3. Special Report: Russian Disinformation Operation Misuses the Comment Sections of U.S. News Outlets to Spread False Claims — then Cite the False Claims as Evidence of U.S. Public Opinion
By McKenzie Sadeghi and Isis Blachez
Russian disinformation about the 2024 U.S. election is being planted by accounts posing as frustrated Western citizens in the comment sections of six highly trafficked news websites in the U.S., U.K., and France, in an apparent effort to portray the false claims as reflecting opinion among news consumers.
NewsGuard has identified 194 inauthentic users posting false claims in the comments sections of the six news publishers. But that is only the first step in the disinformation campaign. The comments are then touted in Russian state media, which selects a handful of pro-Kremlin comments from these Western news outlets and presents them as the West’s prevailing opinion on contentious issues, such as the U.S. presidential race and the Russia-Ukraine war.
This is the first time that the tactic of exploiting website comment sections for Russian influence operations, which was prolific during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, has been documented in the 2024 election cycle.
NewsGuard identified these 194 users in the comments section of six Western publications: U.K. tabloid Daily Mail (Trust Score: 69.5/100), conservative site Breitbart (Trust Score: 49.5/100), U.S. newspaper New York Post (Trust Score: 69.5/100), Fox News (Trust Score: 69.5/100), conservative website the Gateway Pundit (Trust Score: 30/100), and French daily newspaper Le Figaro (Trust Score: 92.5/100).
Efforts to use website comment sections to promote inauthentic content bear the hallmarks of the Internet Research Agency, a Russian troll farm sanctioned by the U.S. for meddling in U.S. elections that was founded by the late Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prighozin, whose influence operations have persisted after his death.
The 194 users NewsGuard identified target the same articles, push the same pro-Russian, talking points and disinformation narratives, all while masquerading as disgruntled Western citizens. Although NewsGuard did not find direct evidence of coordination or direct ties to Russian state actors, all the user accounts analyzed appeared to be fabricated or bot-like. None of the accounts discloses any verifiable information about itself, such as a first and last name or profile photo, and the accounts all target articles with comments pushing the same talking points. From Jan. 1, 2024, to Aug. 27, 2024, NewsGuard found 104 articles on Russian government-run disinformation sources, including RIA Novosti, citing these comments in Western news websites to purport to reflect consensus views in the West.
For example: On Oct. 16, 2024, pro-Kremlin users shared a video purporting to show a former high school student named Matthew Metro accusing Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz of sexual assault 27 years ago, when Walz was a teacher. The video was unmasked by NewsGuard and other organizations as an AI-fabrication linked to Storm-1516, which includes a network of 171 sites operated by former Florida deputy sheriff John Mark Dougan who fled to Moscow as a fugitive.
NewsGuard determined that the fake video was initially planted in the comment sections of high-profile U.S. conservative news sites Breitbart and the Gateway Pundit, before appearing across social media and on Dougan’s network of local news sites. The comments, shared by anonymously run accounts including “Disobedient Truth” and “Private Patriot” all stated: “More bad news for the Dems: Breaking: Tim Walz's former student, Matthew Metro, drops a shocking allegation- claims Walz s*xually assaulted him in 1997 while Walz was his teacher at Mankato West High School.”
From there, the claim spread to Rumble, Telegram, Reddit, YouTube, Bitchute, and QAnon forums, and was shared across 100 fake local news outlets operated by Dougan.
In an October 2024 email to NewsGuard, a spokesperson for Fox News said: “FOX News Digital’s comment sections are monitored continuously in real time by the outside company OpenWeb which services multiple media organizations. Comments made by fake personas and professional trolls are removed as soon as issues are brought to our attention by both OpenWeb and the additional internal oversight mechanisms we have in place." Laurent Suply, Digital Operations Director at Le Figaro, told NewsGuard in an October 2024 email that only paying subscribers are able to comment on articles and that comments are moderated by a third-party company. “Le Figaro moderates comments prior to publication, based on a public policy,” Suply said. “Le Figaro is obviously aware of the importance of its role in the French public debate, and of the attempts at disinformation existing in our country.”
NewsGuard sent an email to Breitbart, the New York Post, the Daily Mail, and the Gateway Pundit, seeking comment on the findings, but did not receive a response.
Miranda Wollen and Yurii Stasiuk contributed reporting.
If you see something, say something
If you see or hear something that you think may be provably false, please alert NewsGuard via realitycheck@newsguardtech.com and we'll do our best to get to the bottom of it. Note: Tips should not include content that you simply disagree with, however strongly.
4. One More Thing … Pro-UAE Network of Fake X Accounts Targets U.S. Election with Misinformation
What happened: Days before the 2024 presidential election, a network of fake AI-generated accounts on X apparently linked to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is spreading misinformation.
The apparent goal is to amplify divisions in U.S. politics and steer public discourse to favor the Arab state.
Context: While NewsGuard has found countries hostile to the U.S., including Russia, China, and Iran, routinely using fake social media accounts to influence U.S. presidential elections, this marks the first reported network of such activity originating from the UAE — often described as a key U.S. ally in the Gulf.
The campaign targets both left- and right-leaning audiences with misinformation — a common tactic in foreign influence operations such as “Spamouflage,” the China-linked disinformation network.
A closer look: The network identified by NewsGuard consists of 30 fake X accounts that publish content promoting the UAE government and use identically formatted posts, indicating the use of AI.
Of those accounts, 10 publish incendiary or false claims about U.S. politics on topics including the COVID pandemic, voter fraud, and the presidential campaign.
Although NewsGuard could not definitively identify the people behind the network, the accounts consistently publish pro-UAE propaganda, strongly suggesting that they originated in the Gulf state.
These false reports include claims that:
Voting machines in Tarrant County, Texas, switched votes in the 2024 U.S. presidential election. (Reality Check members can see NewsGuard’s debunk here.)
The September 2024 presidential debate was “rigged” in favor of Kamala Harris. As proof, an X post cited baseless allegations from an anonymous ABC News “whistleblower.” However, a document described as an “anonymous affidavit” that was used to back up the allegation “was impossible to authenticate and made unsubstantiated claims that it provided no evidence to support,” according to a September 2024 article from media think tank Poynter (Trust Score: 100/100).
RFK Jr. exposed an alleged plan by the Democratic Party and the “deep state” to “trigger martial law and civil unrest in the contested upcoming election.” (The claim was pushed by Alex Jones, host of InfoWars (Trust Score: 7.5/100), on X without evidence.)
NewsGuard sent an email to X, inquiring about the network and its activities, but did not receive a response.
Click here to find out more about NewsGuard Trust Scores and our process for rating websites. You can download NewsGuard’s browser extension, which displays NewsGuard Trust Score icons next to links on search engines, social media feeds, and other platforms by clicking here.
Misinformation Quiz Answer: Misinformation!
Debunk: A May 2024 study did not prove that 10 to 27 percent of U.S. noncitizens are illegally registered to vote, as its author and several conservative news sites have claimed. Political scientists say the underlying data used in the study have significant methodological flaws, and the available evidence shows it is extremely rare for noncitizens to be registered to vote.
Moreover, there is no corroborating evidence that millions of noncitizens are illegally voting in U.S. elections. A Heritage Foundation database of election fraud cases brought by prosecutors, which the conservative think tank describes as a “sampling,” includes only 85 cases involving allegations of noncitizen voting between 2002 and 2023, according to The Washington Post (Trust Score: 100/100).
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