Associated Incidents
What do Beyoncé, Rihanna, R. Kelly, Selena Gomez and Eminem have in common -- besides being world famous singers? They also all appear to have recorded a version of a banger called "God Protect Ibrahim Traoré" and posted it on YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok. It is an ode to the glory of the president of Burkina Faso, who came to power in a coup d'état in September 2022.
As gospel music plays in the background, the music video shows the president of Burkina Faso comforting a wounded man and being cheered on by a crowd of kids.
"God protect Ibrahim Traoré, stand him in your grace, give him wisdom, give him strength to lead this fragile place," go the lyrics in the version supposedly featuring American singer R. Kelly. R. Kelly can be seen riding a motorcycle as a burst of gunfire explodes behind him. The song goes on to refer to the Islamist insurrection affecting both Burkina Faso and other countries in the Sahel:
Jihadist storms have raged too long
Displacing hearts and homes
Oh Lord, we need your justice now
In these blood-stained zones.
Later on in the music video, Rihanna appears, calling for "five more years of soldier's rule", thus showing her support for keeping Ibrahim Traoré and his military junta in power.
Hundreds of comments in English appear below the music video that supposedly shows R. Kelly and Rihanna, most featuring glowing messages of support for Traoré. They were written by social media users who say they are from English-speaking African nations including Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Uganda and Malawi. It is impossible to say if these messages were published by social media users or if they are part of the disinformation campaign.
In total, our team counted at least fifteen different versions of "God Protect Ibrahim Traoré" on Youtube, all in English, and all featuring deepfake celebrities singing odes to the Burkina Faso president.
**AI created music videos **
However, all of the many versions of "God Protect Ibrahim Traoré" are deepfakes. They are poor quality, not very realistic -- in fact, they all look like video games. Aside from that, there are other clues that they were AI-generated. The face of one man in the crowd is deformed. The banner featuring Traoré's name has illegible letters on it -- AI still struggles to create legible text on a photo.
If you look at these videos on YouTube, they are actually described as "altered or synthetic content", which means AI-generated. But even though these music videos are clearly false, a number of English-speaking influencers have fallen for them and continue to share them.
Nancy Blaq, a Ghanaian influencer with 2.7 million followers, shared the version "sung" by Beyoncé on Facebook.
"During her sold-out concert at Madison Square Garden last night, the global superstar paused between her chart-topping hits to deliver a message that left the audience in awe: 'God protect Ibrahim Traoré, protect Burkina Faso'", the influencer wrote in a post from May 10. The video was also shared on May 4 by a Facebook page said to be the Russian television channel Rossiya 1 Afrique.
Pro-Traoré content has also been shared by social media users who support the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), which includes Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.
"Viva Ibrahim Traoré, Viva the Burkinabé army, Viva the AES army," wrote one pro-AES Facebook user in French along with the Beyoncé music video.
294 fake music videos shared by 127 YouTube channels
Our team set out to determine just how widely these fake clips had been shared. To do so, we used a software program that enabled us to identify the fake pro-Traoré music videos published on YouTube and how many views they had obtained.
While the first versions of "God Protect Ibrahim Traoré" appeared on YouTube in March, most were published in early May. We counted at least 294 fake music videos that were posted on YouTube. Together, they obtained more than 8.6 million views.
These videos were shared on at least 127 YouTube channels. Most of these chains were created recently and have existed for between six and two months. A fair number of them only contain pro-Ibrahim Traoré content, which suggests they were specifically created to support the Burkinabé president. AI was also used to create the page graphics for a number of these YouTube channels. For example, the text on the banners of some of them is gibberish, which can often happen with AI-generated images.
'It's clear that this is a coordinated campaign'
"It's clear that this is a coordinated campaign," says Samba Dialimpa Badji, a researcher in disinformation and fact-checking at the University of Oslomet in Norway. "Even if we don't have the elements to prove that Burkina Faso's government is behind this communication campaign, they are certainly benefiting from it."
The Burkina Faso government does not have a history of using AI to create fake videos en masse.
"What we've observed up until now is that they mostly relied on influencers on social media -- WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter -- who posted content glorifying Ibrahim Traoré or showing their support for the military junta in power in Burkina Faso. AI makes it possible to create fake content very rapidly, easily and in large quantity," Dialimpa Badji added.
"There is no sign that real people are behind these posts," says the researcher. "It could be that the accounts sharing this content were also AI-created. One single person could easily do that: create different accounts on different social media platforms and create content in an automated way," Dialimpa Badji said.
**Music videos made in Nigeria **
Our team was able to make contact with the person behind the YouTube channel where a clip called "God Protect Ibrahim Traoré by R. Kelly" garnered more than 1.9 million views. The person claims to be the creator of this video, which checks with the date the video was created. The YouTuber, who is based in Nigeria, says he is an artist who specialises in using AI to create music videos. He said that he charges about $1,000 (€881) for each music video.
He said that using AI to make videos honouring the president of Burkina Faso started out as a personal project.
"My motivation was that Ibrahim Traoré does what many African leaders don't do," he said. "I admire him a lot."
"When people saw that these videos were going viral on my channel, they started asking me to make the same kind of video for them," he said. "So that's when I started charging for creating the music videos and promoting them."
The creator said that he was actually behind most of the popular music videos celebrating Ibrahim Traoré on YouTube and TikTok. We weren't able to verify this claim. He also did not respond to our questions about the identity of his sponsors.
"The people behind this campaign probably looked for people who had the skills to create AI-generated content [like in Nigeria] where you can easily find someone to carry out this service," Dialimpa Badji said.
Was the publication of these music videos coordinated with Burkina Faso's government?
Why was there a sudden explosion of pro-Traoré music videos in May?
Interestingly, the Burkina Faso government launched a new communication campaign to up the profile of the president at the same time that many of these videos were posted online. On April 27, Burkina's Information Agency published a news brief boldly claiming that "Captain Ibrahim Traoré [is] worshipped around the world". As proof, the news agency cited a tweet by the well-known Ghanaian rapper, Sarkodie, who posted the message "God Protect Ibrahim Traoré" on X on April 25 -- exactly the same phrase as the music videos. A few days later, on April 30, Burkina Faso's authorities declared a "global day in support of Ibrahim Traoré", calling for people to take to the streets in Burkina Faso and abroad.
The posting of these fake music videos seems coordinated with the communication campaign meant to promote Traoré's image, said Mathieu Pellerin, an analyst specialist in the Sahel region with International Crisis Group: "Since taking office, President Traoré has been using direct references to Thomas Sankara, which give him an air of legitimacy, considering the Burkina Faso population's adoration for Sankara".
Thomas Sankara was the revolutionary president of Burkina Faso who was assassinated in 1987. Even today, Sankara is an anti-colonial, pan-Africanist icon in Africa.
"This aligns perfectly with the ideas that Traoré wants to represent for his country and beyond: popular uprising, a rupture with colonialism and imperialism in favour of sovereignty, both for Burkina Faso and in a pan-African sense. These are also the messages transmitted by this AI campaign, which is amplifying his message outside of Burkina Faso."
**Videos aimed at an English-speaking public **
Most of these fake music videos promoting Ibrahim Traoré feature singers from the English-speaking world. This isn't by chance. According to the BBC, the users posting most content on X in support of Ibrahim Traoré are from the English-speaking world, including Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa and the United States.
"We've noticed that these posts are especially going viral in English-speaking countries. So I think that means that these countries have been targeted, probably in an attempt to break out of the straightjacket of the French-speaking world," says Dialimpa Badji, "They have probably concluded that in the French-speaking world, particularly in West Africa, a percentage of the public will already know about Traoré. And so perhaps that populations won't be as easy to manipulate with this type of content, because they know a bit already about the situation in the Sahel, in Burkina Faso, in Niger... where there is already a sort of defiance against those in power."
"This propaganda is probably meant to mask the failure of Traoré's security policies and to promote his political position both nationally and internationally, to reduce the chance that he might end up diplomatically isolated," Pellerin says.
"He's had undeniable success with the latter, considering his popularity within the region and internationally. But I don't think that it is quite the same internally. Even though the president has a base of popular support, it seems like that has been eroding, considering the fact that the regime hasn't been able to restore security in the country. Not to mention the fact that increasing numbers of civilians have been arrested."
In recent weeks, Burkina Faso has suffered several setbacks in its fight against jihadists with JNIM, a terrorist group linked to Al Qaeda.
"Considering the success of this campaign, it wouldn't be surprising if other countries start using the same technique -- like Mali, for example, where disinformation is already rampant," Dialimpa Badji said.