US celebrities ‘unwittingly recruited’ for Cameo disinformation campaign against Moldovan president

A new report details an attempt to use US celebrities via Cameo to target the president of Moldova.

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Moldova's President Maia Sandu was the target of an attack campaign last September: a seemingly coordinated effort by U.S. celebrities on Cameo, an online video platform, calling for her ouster.

The catch: The celebrities, including Dolph Lundgren, Lindsay Lohan and Brian Baumgartner, were manipulated to level the geopolitical attacks.

This is the conclusion of a new report from the Atlantic Council Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab)a think tank that studies misinformation and the future of digital rights.

Cameo is a platform where users can pay celebrities and television stars to record a video with the text they want to read. Customers specify who the message is for and why they want it recorded, pay the price specified by the celebrity, and receive the video.

Euronews Next reached out to Cameo for comment but did not receive a response before publication.

The videos begin with a warm greeting from the president, but are then interrupted by a Russian text: “We, Hollywood stars, support the people of Moldova in their desire to overthrow you, Sandu. We join the flash mob “#DavaiteSkinemSandu” (which means “#Let'sBringDownSandu” in Russian).

DFRLab's report states that the videos did not appear to be deepfakes, but rather were edited with fake captions “without the consent of the celebrities involved.”

The video was shared by prominent pro-Russian channels on Telegram and received at least a few hundred thousand views.

The report concludes that the operations seek to “discredit and weaken Moldova's current pro-European government” because President Sandu is “making a transition.”[ing] towards European integration and away from Russia’s sphere of influence.”

The next elections in Moldova are scheduled for the fall and Sandu is running for re-election. Local media say she is tying her re-election to the “entire EU”. integration“.

The EU decided in December to start accession negotiations with both Ukraine and Moldova.