There is no KBSF-TV in San Francisco, and according to a BBC Verify investigationthe original website that published the story was registered less than two weeks ago. The photo attached to the article, which supposedly shows the accident itself, was actually taken in Guam in 2018. And the video of Brown – who is misnamed several times in the article and the video – also appears to be a deepfake. The X-rays of Brown’s spine, supposedly taken after the accident, can pursued back to medical journals that have no connection with the alleged crash.

Strangely, this is not the only case of a fabricated story targeting the Democrats. The man behind the operation is John Mark Dougan, a former Florida police officer who has since moved to Moscow to create fake news sites full-time to spread misinformation among American voters ahead of the 2024 elections, according to the BBC.

Another website launched by Dougan, The Houston Post, accused the FBI of illegally wiretapping Donald Trump’s Florida resort Mar-a-Lago. Other websites also bore American names, including the Chicago Crier, the Boston Times and DC Weekly. According to the BBC, most of the articles published on the sites were not necessarily fake, but rather poor copies of actual news that had been reworked by AI engines. Some of the articles, at the time of the BBC’s investigation, still contained the user’s instructions to the bot at the end of the text: “Please rewrite this article from a conservative perspective.”