DeepfakeHigh
Wisconsin U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden Reportedly Posted Grok Imagine Deepfakes Depicting Opponent Rebecca Cooke Saying Things She Did Not Say
- Occurred
- Aug 4, 2026
- Published
- Oct 1, 2026
- Source
- AI Incident Database
Summary
Wisconsin U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden repeatedly posted Grok Imagine-generated videos depicting Democratic challenger Rebecca Cooke saying statements she did not make. Cooke called the clips deceptive and defamatory; Van Orden's campaign described them as obvious AI-generated satire. Cooke's attorneys later sent a cease-and-desist alleging the videos were intended to mislead voters and harm her reputation.
Developers
- xAI
- Synthetic video generation technology developers
- Deepfake technology developers
- Synthetic media generation technology developers
- Synthetic audio generation technology developers
Deployers
- Derrick Van Orden
- Deepfake creators
- Synthetic media creators
- Public figures
- Politicians
- Politicians in the United States
- Information manipulation actors
- Information manipulation actors in the United States
Harmed parties
- Rebecca Cooke
- Political candidates targeted by deepfakes
- Voters
- Epistemic integrity
- Public figures
- Politicians
- Politicians in the United States
Classification
Category confidence: 95%
Severity confidence: 90%
Rationale: AI-generated deepfake videos used in political campaign to mislead voters and defame opponent.
Classifier: Qwen/Qwen3.5-35B-A3B-FP8