Description: Reports describe a purported AI-enabled influence and disinformation campaign centered on Burkina Faso's junta leader Ibrahim Traoré. Dozens of purported AI-generated or AI-manipulated videos, allegedly produced by groups such as Black Rebellion and Univers Inspirant, have circulated widely across African media promoting pro-Traoré and pro-Russian narratives, with similar synthetic content appearing during regional conflicts and political events.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: Various generative AI developers , Unknown voice cloning technology developers and Unknown deepfake technology developers developed an AI system deployed by Wagner Group , Univers Inspirant , Pro-Russian influencers , Pro-Kremlin actors , Pro-Ibrahim Traoré information ecosystem , Government of Russia , Black Rebellion and Africa Corps, which harmed Truth , Journalists , General public of Sudan , General public of Niger , General public of Mali , General public of Burkina Faso , General public of African nations , General public , Epistemic integrity , Democracy , National security and intelligence stakeholders and General public of West Africa.
Alleged implicated AI systems: Various generative AI tools , Unknown voice cloning technology and Unknown deepfake technology
Incident Stats
Incident ID
1283
Report Count
1
Incident Date
2025-09-30
Editors
Daniel Atherton
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
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Shortly after Capt. Ibrahim Traoré led Burkina Faso’s second coup in a year in September 2023, deepfake videos began circulating that urged Burkinabe citizens to support the coup.
Since then, Traoré has become the star of a variety of video…
Variants
A "variant" is an AI incident similar to a known case—it has the same causes, harms, and AI system. Instead of listing it separately, we group it under the first reported incident. Unlike other incidents, variants do not need to have been reported outside the AIID. Learn more from the research paper.
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