DeepfakeMedium
Purported Synthesia Avatars Used in Alleged Pro-Junta Deepfake Video Supporting Ibrahim Traoré in Burkina Faso
- Occurred
- Jan 23, 2023
- Published
- Jan 27, 2023
- Source
- AI Incident Database
Summary
In January 2023, purportedly AI-generated videos reportedly began circulating on WhatsApp and social media showing avatars of apparent American pan-Africanists expressing support for Burkina Faso's military junta. The videos were reportedly created using the Synthesia platform. Synthesia later confirmed the videos violated its terms of service and banned the user. The source of the videos remains unidentified.
Developers
- Synthesia
Deployers
- Pro-Ibrahim Traoré information ecosystem
- Unknown actors
Harmed parties
- General public of Burkina Faso
- General public
- Epistemic integrity
- National security and intelligence stakeholders
- General public of West Africa
Tags
- deepfake
- AI-generated avatar
- propaganda
- Burkina Faso
- Synthesia
- misinformation
- disinformation
- political manipulation
- social media
- influence operations
Classification
Category confidence: 95%
Severity confidence: 90%
Rationale: AI-generated avatars used to create deceptive political content, confirmed by platform as ToS violation.
Classifier: Qwen/Qwen3.5-35B-A3B-FP8