Thread by @NBCNews

A 64-page document asserting an elaborate conspiracy theory involving Joe Biden's son and business in China, that was later disseminated by close associates of President Trump, appears to be the work of a fake "intelligence firm." (1/8) #NBCNewsThreads nbcnews.to/3e9Gug9

The document, which went viral on the right-wing internet a month before the purported leak of files from Hunter Biden's laptop, was said to be authored by Swiss security analyst Martin Aspen — who doesn't exist, according to an analysis by disinformation researchers. (2/8)

Disinformation researchers say Aspen is a fabricated identity and that his profile picture was created with an artificial intelligence face generator. The firm he lists as his previous employer tells @NBCNews that nobody by that name had ever worked for their company. (3/8)

The document and its spread have become part of a wider effort to smear Hunter Biden and weaken Joe Biden's presidential campaign. One of the original posters of the document, Christopher Balding, took credit for writing parts of the document and said Aspen doesn't exist. (4/8)

Balding said Aspen is "an entirely fictional individual created solely for the purpose of releasing this report" and said "the primary author of the report, due to personal and professional risks, requires anonymity." (5/8) nbcnews.com/tech/security/…

Balding claims that the document was commissioned by Apple Daily, a Hong Kong-based tabloid that's frequently critical of China's government. The document was promoted on far-right media despite its dubious origins, appearing on podcasts by Steve Bannon and The Epoch Times. (6/8)

Blog posts featuring the most salacious parts of the document received tens of thousands of public interactions across Facebook, Twitter and Reddit, according to social media analysis tool BuzzSumo. The content was also pushed by the QAnon conspiracy movement. (7/8)

Computer-generated faces have become a staple of large-scale disinformation operations in the run-up to the 2020 election, and have the potential to make disinformation operations harder to discover, Renee DiResta, a researcher at the Stanford Internet Observatory says. (8/8)