← the record
WF-73DZDB

Purported AI-Generated Video Portrays Pope Leo XIV Addressing Ibrahim Traoré of Burkina Faso

A purported 36-minute AI-generated deepfake video circulated online portraying Pope Leo XIV delivering a speech to Burkina Faso's President Ibrahim Traoré. The Vatican Press Office and Catholic broadcaster Patrick Madrid publicly confirmed the video was fabricated.

Date it happened
2025-05-23
Organisation involved
Unknown actors, Pro-Traoré information ecosystem
Product, system or model
Deepfake technology, Synthetic audio generation technology
Where this came from
Share this incident
XLinkedInFacebookWhatsAppEmail
Attribution

This incident was imported from AI Incident Database and is used under CC BY-SA 4.0. Our additions to it — the structured fields, the translation, the checks against other reports — are published under the same licence.

This is a record of what was reported, not a finding that anyone broke the law. If it names your organisation and you believe it is wrong, the corrections process is free and open to everyone.