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Incident 1093: Fact-Checkers Identify Viral Photo of Burkina Faso's Ibrahim Traoré with 'Wife and Children' as AI-Generated Composite

Description: A manipulated image allegedly showing Burkina Faso junta leader Ibrahim Traoré with a wife and three children circulated widely on social media. Investigations by GhanaFact and others concluded the image was altered using AI tools, merging Traoré's likeness from a 2023 Russia-Africa summit photo with fabricated figures. The harm stems from the spread of false personal information about a political figure, potentially shaping public perception through synthetic, misleading media.
Editor Notes: These images reportedly circulated across social media beginning in late April 2025 and into May 2025. This incident is part of a cluster of reported deepfake videos circulated online to promote Ibrahim Traoré’s leadership, all of which are seemingly contributing to a wider disinformation campaign linked to pro-junta sentiment. The cluster seems to have arisen in March 2025 and continued through to at least the end of May 2025. See also Incident 1091 for a 2023 deepfake incident involving similar themes.

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Alleged: Unknown deepfake technology developer developed an AI system deployed by Unknown actors and Pro-Traoré information ecosystem, which harmed Truth and General public of Burkina Faso.
Alleged implicated AI systems: Unknown deepfake technology and Social media

Incident Stats

Incident ID
1093
Report Count
1
Incident Date
2025-04-26
Editors
Daniel Atherton

Incident Reports

Reports Timeline

Incident OccurrenceFACT-CHECK: Viral photo of Ibrahim Traore’s family is manipulated
FACT-CHECK: Viral photo of Ibrahim Traore’s family is manipulated

FACT-CHECK: Viral photo of Ibrahim Traore’s family is manipulated

ghanafact.com

FACT-CHECK: Viral photo of Ibrahim Traore’s family is manipulated
ghanafact.com · 2025

Claim: Family photo shows Burkinabe junta leader Ibrahim Traoré with wife and three children

Source: Social media 

Verdict: Manipulated content, Fake

Researched by Alfa Shaban

The popularity of Ibrahim Traoré, the Burkinabe junta leader, ha…

Variants

A "variant" is an incident that shares the same causative factors, produces similar harms, and involves the same intelligent systems as a known AI incident. Rather than index variants as entirely separate incidents, we list variations of incidents under the first similar incident submitted to the database. Unlike other submission types to the incident database, variants are not required to have reporting in evidence external to the Incident Database. Learn more from the research paper.

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Purported Synthesia Avatars Used in Alleged Pro-Junta Deepfake Video Supporting Ibrahim Traoré in Burkina Faso

Jan 2023 · 1 report
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Purported Synthesia Avatars Used in Alleged Pro-Junta Deepfake Video Supporting Ibrahim Traoré in Burkina Faso

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