A pornographic video that circulated Reddit, Pornhub, Spankbang, and Imgur has been linked to Russia’s Internet Research Agency. The video, which falsely claims to depict Hillary Clinton engaging in sex, comes from the Reddit account Rubinjer, according to a report from NBC News.
Reddit suspects that Rubinjer is the Russian-linked agency’s most popular account, and the video itself received 100,000 upvotes (similar to Facebook likes) before being shut down by the company. The video, titled "Leaked Hillary Clinton’s Hotel Sex Tape with Black Guy," was reportedly created by the IRA, which made other videos Complex has previously reported on. The Department of Justice claims the IRA has a “strategic goal to sow discord in the US political system,” including its attempt to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.
The posts from Rubinjer didn’t seem to make a huge wave in the Reddit community, however. Ahead of the 2016 election, Rubinjer posted an animated GIF and a link to the video on r/The_Donald, the largest pro-Trump community on the platform. According to NBC News, the posts from Rubinjer "largely fell flat, with most users expressing skepticism" of its authenticity.
The video was also posted five times to Pornhub, and was viewed more than 250,000 times on the site. The video has since been deleted, but still exists on other porn sites. Rubinjer is the only user that is known to have posted the video on any platform, but the amount of posting shows how much the agency wanted to push this fake sex tape onto American users.
The account is just one of 944 that Reddit announced on Tuesday were banned for “suspected Russian Internet Research Agency origin.”
