A Russia-Linked Reddit Account Touted a ‘Fake Hillary Clinton Sex Tape’

A Reddit user who posted a fabricated pornographic video, purported to feature former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has reportedly been traced to a notorious Russia-based “troll farm.”

According to NBC news, the content-sharing platform revealed Tuesday that the account that touted a GIF of the video is associated with the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a St. Petersburg based disinformation unit. The IRA is known for deploying an army of users and bots that posted divisive political content during the 2016 presidential election.

The offending GIF was posted to Reddit in 2016 and the video to pornographic streaming platform Pornhub, where it has been viewed more than 250,000 times, according to NBC.

A former IRA employee disclosed last October that the firm had fabricated the video, the Daily Beast reported at the time.

Read more: How Russia Spreads Fake News, Explained by a Former Troll

The account, Rubinjer, was active in numerous political messaging channels on Reddit, including r/The_Donald and r/HillaryForPrison, before it was banned from the platform Tuesday. Reddit has banned a total of 944 accounts that had posted a combined total of 14,000 times, according to the statement from company CEO Steve Huffman.

Facebook also recently deleted 135 Facebook and Instagram accounts and 138 Facebook Pages linked to the IRA, while Twitter banned over 1,000 accounts in January.

In March, the IRA was among five Russian firms and 19 individuals targeted with sanctions by the Trump administration for alleged election interference, while a month earlier it was indicted by Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller for “seeking to interfere in the United States political system, including the 2016 Presidential election.”