AI incident ·
Russia-Linked Matryoshka Operators Reportedly Circulated Deepfake Mother Jones Video Impersonating Editor Clara Jeffery and Falsely Claiming DNC Paid CNN $259 Million
In brief
An AI system built by Synthetic video generation technology developers, Synthetic media generation technology developers and 1 other and deployed by Synthetic media creators, Storm-1679 and 7 others allegedly harmed X (Twitter) users, Voters in the United States and 10 others.
- Risk domain
- Not classified
- Occurred
- Coverage
- 1 report
What happened
A Russia-linked Matryoshka disinformation operation reportedly circulated a deepfake video falsely branded as Mother Jones that impersonated editor Clara Jeffery and claimed the DNC paid CNN chief Mark Thompson $259 million to promote gender transition among children. Two X posts displayed about 205,000 views, though researchers said impressions may have overstated authentic reach. X later removed the posts after Mother Jones complained.
Laws that address this harm
No recorded instrument yet addresses this use case where it happened. See the open queue.
Matched from the record's risk domain and country to the instruments recorded here. A reviewer can correct the match in the repository (data/external/incident_overrides.yaml).
News reports (1)
Titles link to the original publisher; report text is not reproduced here.
Who was involved
- Alleged deployer
- Synthetic media creators Storm-1679 Russian state-linked actors Operation Overload Matryoshka Information manipulation actors in Russia Information manipulation actors Influence operation groups Deepfake creators
- Alleged developer
- Synthetic video generation technology developers Synthetic media generation technology developers Deepfake technology developers
- Alleged harmed party
- X (Twitter) users Voters in the United States Voters Social media users News organizations Mother Jones Mark Thompson Journalists Epistemic integrity Democratic National Committee Democratic integrity CNN
AI systems implicated
X (Twitter)Synthetic video generation technologySynthetic media generation technologySocial media platformsDeepfake technology
Classification (MIT AI Risk Repository taxonomy)
- Risk domain
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- Risk subdomain
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- Causal entity
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- Intent
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Related incidents
Linked by editors or by text similarity in the source dataset.
Other incidents involving Synthetic media creators
- Purportedly AI-Generated Image Reportedly Prompted Police Alert and Search for Nonexistent Venomous Viper in Santa Ana, California
- Stanford University Acknowledged Using AI to Alter Student Photo for Campus Banners, Replacing Hispanic Student With Black Woman
- AI-Generated Images Purporting to Show Donald Trump Kissing White House Aide Natalie Harp Went Viral on Social Media
- Russia-Linked Matryoshka Influence Operation Reportedly Used AI-Cloned Celebrity Voices and Fabricated News-Style Videos to Target Democratic Candidates Ahead of 2026 U.S. Midterms
- Purported Deepfake WhatsApp Scam Impersonating Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and Actor C. Joseph Vijay Reportedly Defrauded Bengaluru Security Guard of ₹104,000 (~$1,085.40)
- Delhi Man Allegedly Used AI to Create and Circulate Obscene Images of College Acquaintance
Source record: incident #1715 on the AI Incident Database · all 1 report