Description: A Russia-linked Matryoshka disinformation operation reportedly circulated a deepfake video falsely branded as Mother Jones that impersonated editor Clara Jeffery and claimed the DNC paid CNN chief Mark Thompson $259 million to promote gender transition among children. Two X posts displayed about 205,000 views, though researchers said impressions may have overstated authentic reach. X later removed the posts after Mother Jones complained.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: Synthetic video generation technology developers , Synthetic media generation technology developers and Deepfake technology developers developed an AI system deployed by Synthetic media creators , Storm-1679 , Russian state-linked actors , Operation Overload , Matryoshka , Information manipulation actors in Russia , Information manipulation actors , Influence operation groups and Deepfake creators, which harmed X (Twitter) users , Voters in the United States , Voters , Social media users , News organizations , Mother Jones , Mark Thompson , Journalists , Epistemic integrity , Democratic National Committee , Democratic integrity , CNN and Clara Jeffery.
Alleged implicated AI systems: X (Twitter) , Synthetic video generation technology , Synthetic media generation technology , Social media platforms and Deepfake technology
Incident Stats
Incident ID
1715
Report Count
1
Incident Date
2026-09-22
Editors
Daniel Atherton
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
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A few days ago, an X user called роман---which is Russian for the name "Roman"---posted a purported Mother Jones video that reported that the Democratic National Committee paid a whopping $259 million to Mark Thompson, the head of CNN, so t…
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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