Description: A video reportedly published on May 25, 2025, claimed to show Burkina Faso President Ibrahim Traoré delivering a forceful speech against Western media and exploitation. The video, which purportedly used AI-generated visuals and audio, was shared widely on social platforms. Despite containing disclaimers identifying it as fictional, the video was reportedly circulated and interpreted by some viewers as authentic.
Editor Notes: 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 variables.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: Unknown deepfake technology developer and Unknown voice cloning technology developer developed an AI system deployed by Univers Inspirant , Unknown actors and Pro-Ibrahim Traoré information ecosystem, which harmed General public of Burkina Faso and Truth.
Alleged implicated AI systems: Unknown deepfake technology and Unknown voice cloning technology
Incident Stats
Incident ID
1096
Report Count
1
Incident Date
2025-05-25
Editors
Daniel Atherton
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
Recently, a video has been circulated across various internet platforms, claiming to show a speech by Burkina Faso's military officer and President Ibrahim Traoré under the title: "Protesting Western Media's False Representation of Africa a…
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.