Burkina Faso’s leader appeared in a music video with global superstar Beyoncé.
Or did he?
In fact, the video, which included the song lyrics, “God protect Ibrahim Traoré in the battle for the people’s path, breaking the chains of the empire’s grip,” is just one of hundreds of fakes littering social media sites across the region, according to the BBC.
The reach of these videos, known as deepfakes, spans the continent from Ghana to Kenya. They promote Traoré, a military junta captain who took control of the nation in a 2022 coup, as a model of leadership and a hero to pan-Africanists, the BBC reported May 15.
Deepfakes are a form of digital media created by artificial intelligence tools that can be used to manipulate photos, audio and video. The danger of this technology lies in its ability to create media that purports to show a political or well-known figure saying or doing something they wouldn’t normally say or do. Certain free, downloadable software applications can make them easy enough for almost anyone to create.
It’s not clear who produced the Traoré-Beyoncé deepfake video. What is clear, however, is that Russian information operations, and local influencers sympathetic to Russian messaging run rampant in Burkina Faso and beyond.
According to a 2024 Africa Center for Strategic Studies report, Burkina Faso was home to at least eight Kremlin-linked efforts to influence the civilian population. The West African region accounts for almost 40% of such campaigns on the continent, and many of them are connected in some way to Russia. Some of these efforts, which include operations in neighboring Mali and Niger, can be linked to Russia’s Wagner Group, now known as Africa Corps.
Russia’s state-sponsored Pravda media outlet amplified a fake AI-generated story that claimed a French nongovernmental organization worker had been arrested on espionage charges in Burkina Faso, according to a May 19 Euronews report. The video that planted the story originated on YouTube and carried a disclaimer saying that it was a “work of fiction.” The disclaimer, however, fell away as the video metastasized across Facebook, TikTok and X, gaining millions of views along the way.
Again, direct Russian involvement in this and other fake stories alleging spying by humanitarian workers is elusive. However, “several African TikTok influencers Euroverify has seen propagating the material also promote anti-Western and anti-Ukraine content that fits within the Kremlin’s … playbook,” Euronews reported.
It is not a secret that Russia has overtly backed post-coup governments in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. Russia is the “single largest sponsor” of these information and fake news operations on the continent, according to the Africa Center. Although these campaigns avoid signs of direct Russian involvement, the Kremlin often uses “African influencers, digital avatars, and the circulation of fake and out-of-context videos and photographs,” the Africa Center said.
“These messages copy-and-paste from and are amplified through multiple channels of Russian state-controlled media, radio, and official communications, creating the repetitive echo chambers” in which the narratives thrive, the center’s report states.
So far, the messaging — regardless of its provenance or lack of veracity — appears to be working to Traoré’s advantage. The social media frenzy took wing after an April 30 protest in the Burkinabe capital, Ouagadougou, as tens of thousands rallied to support Traoré, according to a May 7 story in The Africa Report. Other solidarity demonstrations took place in Ghana, Jamaica, London and Nigeria.
AI-generated online images depicted fictional demonstrations in Nairobi, Kenya; Kampala, Uganda; Harare, Zimbabwe; and New York’s Times Square. “Deepfake audio tracks mimicking the voices of global pop stars like Rihanna and Beyoncé singing praises of Traoré circulated widely, blurring the line between digital propaganda and fan-driven mythmaking,” according to The Africa Report.
“It’s algorithmic populism; emotional, visual, anti-Western and hyper-shareable,” Burkinabe researcher Alidou Werem told The Africa Report. “It’s about vibe and vision and not fact or policy. Social media platforms reward spectacle and Traoré’s image fits perfectly into that ecosystem.”