Presidential candidate Joe Biden has made a claim that negative online comments telling people “Biden is a bad guy” are coming from Russian bots.
In an interview with CBS News, Biden claimed that Russians had spent “a lot” of cash on an army of bots that are out to make him look bad.
“I’m the person most likely to beat Trump. The Russians don’t want me to be the nominee. They spent a lot of money on bots on Facebook and they’ve been taken down, saying Biden is a bad guy. They don’t want Biden running. They’re not – no one’s helping me to try to get the nomination. They have good reason,” Biden said.
Biden later admitted the information about the Russian bots came from his own staff, not any intelligence officials.
“I have not spoken to the intelligence community, but I think the intelligence community should inform the rest of us who are running what they told Senator Sanders… I was told that there are a lot of bots on Facebook, and they’ve been all taken down. … Fake accounts, yes, and they’re taken down, but I… I don’t know who — I didn’t get a call from Facebook, but I was told by my… my staff that’s what happened.”
Competitor Bernie Sanders has been informed by the intelligence community that Russians are allegedly trying to influence the election in favor of him – something some are skeptical about and see it as a way to undermine his success in the Democratic Primary.
