DeepfakeMedium
Purportedly AI-Generated 'Eric Langford' Missing Boy Scout Hoax Circulating Across Multiple Social Media Platforms
- Occurred
- Dec 13, 2025
- Published
- Dec 16, 2025
- Source
- AI Incident Database
Summary
A purportedly AI-generated fictional story falsely claimed that a Boy Scout named Eric Langford disappeared in New York in 1989 and reappeared in 2001 after being kidnapped. The reported hoax originated on the UNKNOWN Files YouTube channel and was repackaged into viral TikTok videos and AI-written blog posts promoted on Facebook, misleading millions of viewers and searchers about a fabricated missing-person case.
Developers
- Deepfake technology developers
- Generative AI developers
- Synthetic image generation technology developers
Deployers
- UNKNOWN Files
Harmed parties
- Epistemic integrity
- Social media users
- YouTube users
- TikTok users
- Facebook users
Classification
Category confidence: 90%
Severity confidence: 85%
Rationale: AI-generated content used to create a false missing person narrative, misleading millions without physical harm.
Classifier: Qwen/Qwen3.5-35B-A3B-FP8