DeepfakeHigh
At Least 294 Purported AI-Generated Music Videos Portray Celebrities Praising Burkina Faso's Ibrahim Traoré
- Occurred
- Mar 2, 2025
- Published
- May 30, 2025
- Source
- AI Incident Database
Summary
Between March and May 2025, at least 294 purported AI-generated deepfake music videos were uploaded across a reported 127 YouTube channels, collectively garnering over 8.6 million views by the end of May. The videos depict global celebrities (including Beyoncé, Rihanna, R. Kelly, Selena Gomez, Eminem, and Justin Bieber) praising Burkinabe President Ibrahim Traoré and endorsing military rule.
Developers
- Deepfake technology developers
- Synthetic audio generation technology
Deployers
- Unknown actors
- Pro-Ibrahim Traoré information ecosystem
Harmed parties
- Selena Gomez
- Rihanna
- R. Kelly
- Justin Bieber
- General public of Burkina Faso
- General public
- Epistemic integrity
- Eminem
- Beyoncé
- National security and intelligence stakeholders
Tags
- deepfake
- impersonation
- propaganda
- music video
- YouTube channels
- synthetic media
- Burkina Faso
- misinformation
- disinformation
Classification
Category confidence: 95%
Severity confidence: 85%
Rationale: Large-scale deepfake campaign using synthetic media to deceive viewers about celebrity endorsements of a political figure.
Classifier: Qwen/Qwen3.5-35B-A3B-FP8