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Entities

Religious leaders

Incidents Harmed By

Incident 13551 Report
Reported AI Impersonations of Pastors Used in Online Donation and Influence Scams

2026-01-05

Religious communities in the U.S. and abroad reported the circulation of purportedly AI-generated videos and cloned audio impersonating pastors and church leaders, including Father Mike Schmitz, to solicit donations and spread incendiary sermons. The impersonations reportedly leveraged synthetic voice and likeness tools and were distributed via platforms such as TikTok, Facebook, and messaging apps. Some content remained unlabeled as AI-generated and was treated as authentic by viewers.

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Related Entities
Other entities that are related to the same incident. For example, if the developer of an incident is this entity but the deployer is another entity, they are marked as related entities.
 

Entity

Unknown scammers

Incidents involved as Deployer
  • Incident 1355
    1 Report

    Reported AI Impersonations of Pastors Used in Online Donation and Influence Scams

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Entity

Unknown scammers impersonating religious figures

Incidents involved as Deployer
  • Incident 1355
    1 Report

    Reported AI Impersonations of Pastors Used in Online Donation and Influence Scams

More
Entity

Unknown deepfake technology developers

Incidents involved as Developer
  • Incident 1355
    1 Report

    Reported AI Impersonations of Pastors Used in Online Donation and Influence Scams

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Entity

Unknown voice cloning technology developers

Incidents involved as Developer
  • Incident 1355
    1 Report

    Reported AI Impersonations of Pastors Used in Online Donation and Influence Scams

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Entity

Mike Schmitz

Incidents Harmed By
  • Incident 1355
    1 Report

    Reported AI Impersonations of Pastors Used in Online Donation and Influence Scams

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Entity

Religious institutions

Incidents Harmed By
  • Incident 1355
    1 Report

    Reported AI Impersonations of Pastors Used in Online Donation and Influence Scams

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Entity

Religious communities

Incidents Harmed By
  • Incident 1355
    1 Report

    Reported AI Impersonations of Pastors Used in Online Donation and Influence Scams

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Entity

Churches

Incidents Harmed By
  • Incident 1355
    1 Report

    Reported AI Impersonations of Pastors Used in Online Donation and Influence Scams

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Entity

Congregants

Incidents Harmed By
  • Incident 1355
    1 Report

    Reported AI Impersonations of Pastors Used in Online Donation and Influence Scams

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Entity

General public

Incidents Harmed By
  • Incident 1355
    1 Report

    Reported AI Impersonations of Pastors Used in Online Donation and Influence Scams

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Entity

Epistemic integrity

Incidents Harmed By
  • Incident 1355
    1 Report

    Reported AI Impersonations of Pastors Used in Online Donation and Influence Scams

More
Entity

Unknown deepfake technology

Incidents implicated systems
  • Incident 1355
    1 Report

    Reported AI Impersonations of Pastors Used in Online Donation and Influence Scams

More
Entity

Unknown voice cloning technology

Incidents implicated systems
  • Incident 1355
    1 Report

    Reported AI Impersonations of Pastors Used in Online Donation and Influence Scams

More
Entity

TikTok

Incidents implicated systems
  • Incident 1355
    1 Report

    Reported AI Impersonations of Pastors Used in Online Donation and Influence Scams

More
Entity

Facebook

Incidents implicated systems
  • Incident 1355
    1 Report

    Reported AI Impersonations of Pastors Used in Online Donation and Influence Scams

More
Entity

Instagram

Incidents implicated systems
  • Incident 1355
    1 Report

    Reported AI Impersonations of Pastors Used in Online Donation and Influence Scams

More
Entity

Social media platforms

Incidents implicated systems
  • Incident 1355
    1 Report

    Reported AI Impersonations of Pastors Used in Online Donation and Influence Scams

More
Entity

Messaging apps

Incidents implicated systems
  • Incident 1355
    1 Report

    Reported AI Impersonations of Pastors Used in Online Donation and Influence Scams

More

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