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AI incident #824 ·

Purported Deepfake Allegedly Misattributes Claims to Former Student in Attack on Vice-Presidential Candidate Tim Walz

Open on the AI Incident Database 16 news reports Snapshot 7 Sep 2026

What happened

A purported viral deepfake accused Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz of misconduct by using the stolen identity of former student Matthew Metro. Circulated on X and other platforms, the video reportedly reached millions before being flagged for manipulation. U.S. intelligence later revealed it and three other similar events were part of the Russian disinformation campaign Storm-1516, whose aim is to disrupt the 2024 elections.

Only the incident metadata is stored here. The underlying news reports are on the AI Incident Database (CC BY-SA 4.0); use the links above to read them.

News reports (14)

Coverage catalogued by the AI Incident Database. Titles link to the original publisher; the text is not reproduced here.

  1. Viral attack on Walz features fake former student making false claim
    washingtonpost.com · Jon Swaine, Sarah Blaskey, Chris Dehghanpoor · AIID #4191
  2. Russian Propaganda Unit Appears to Be Behind Spread of False Tim Walz Sexual Abuse Claims
    wired.com · David Gilbert · AIID #4195
  3. MAGA’s New Outrageous Tim Walz Conspiracy Tied to Russian Disinfo Plot
    newrepublic.com · Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling · AIID #4199
  4. Tim Walz targeted by unfounded sexual abuse claim
    factcheck.afp.com · Bill McCarthy · AIID #4202
  5. U.S. officials say Russia smeared Tim Walz, might stoke post-vote violence
    washingtonpost.com · David Nakamura, Joseph Menn · AIID #4194
  6. Russian disinformation groups promoting false claims about Gov. Tim Walz, experts say
    cbsnews.com · Erielle Delzer, Rhona Tarrant · AIID #4196
  7. U.S. intel officials say Russia is behind attempts to smear Tim Walz
    npr.org · Shannon Bond · AIID #4197
  8. Russia was behind false social posts about Tim Walz: U.S. intelligence official
    axios.com · Torey Van Oot · AIID #4198
  9. Russia behind fake video of child-molestation claim against Tim Walz, U.S. intel officials say
    washingtontimes.com · Mallory Wilson · AIID #4200
  10. MAGA Pundits Spread False Sexual Assault Claims Against Tim Walz. Experts Say Russia Is to Blame
    them.us · Abby Monteil · AIID #4201
  11. The far right spreads fake AI-generated video falsely claiming Tim Walz molested a gay student
    lgbtqnation.com · Mira Lazine · AIID #4203
  12. Former US marine ‘hired by Russians to spread lies that Tim Walz groped students’
    telegraph.co.uk · Liz Cookman · AIID #4871
  13. Introducing the Dougan Russian Disinformation Depository: A Showman at Work
    newsguardrealitycheck.com · NewsGuard · AIID #4873
  14. How Russia Openly Escalated Its Election Interference Efforts
    nytimes.com · Steven Lee Myers, Julian E. Barnes · AIID #4879

Who was involved

Alleged deployer
Anonymous X User
Alleged harmed party
Tim Walz, Matthew Metro

Classification (MIT AI Risk Repository taxonomy)

Causal entity
AI
Intent
Intentional
Timing
Post-deployment
Harm level
—
Sectors
—
Countries
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Risk entries describing this failure mode

Entries from the MIT AI Risk Repository coded to subdomain 4.1.

  • Coercion/manipulation

    "Coercion/manipulation - Use of a technology system to covertly alter user beliefs and behaviour using nudging, dark patterns and/or other opaque techniques, resulting in potential erosion of privacy, addiction, anxiety/...

    A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)

  • Electoral interference

    "Electoral interference - Generation of false or misleading information that can interrupt or mislead voters and/or undermine trust in electoral processes."

    A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)

  • Political manipulation

    "Political manipulation - Use or misuse of personal data to target individuals’ interests, personalities and vulnerabilities with tailored political messages via micro-advertising or deepfakes/synthetic media."

    A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)

  • Political and Economic

    "Political and Economic - Manipulation of political beliefs, damage to political institutions and the effective delivery of government services."

    A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)

  • Biased influence through citizen screening and tailored propaganda

    "AI-powered chatbots tailor their communication approach to influence individual users' decisions. In the UK, a form of initial computational propaganda has already happened during the Brexit referendum. In future, there...

    The Rise of Artificial Intelligence - Future Outlooks and Emerging Risks (Allianz2018)

  • Political

    "In the UK, a form of initial computational propaganda has already happened during the Brexit referendum1 . In future, there are concerns that oppressive governments could use AI to shape citizens’ opinions"

    The Rise of Artificial Intelligence - Future Outlooks and Emerging Risks (Allianz2018)

  • Surveillance and Censorship

    "Content moderation has emerged as one of the key use-cases of LLMs (Weng et al., 2023), indicating the potential of LLMs for surveillance and censorship as well (Edwards, 2023). Surveillance and censorship are one of th...

    Foundational Challenges in Assuring Alignment and Safety of Large Language Models (Anwar2024)

  • Disinformation and manipulation of public opinion

    "AI, particularly general- purpose AI, can be maliciously used for disinformation (351), which for the purpose of this report refers to false information that was generated or spread with the deliberate intent to mislead...

    International Scientific Report on the Safety of Advanced AI (Bengio2024)

Incidents in the same risk subdomain

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