Description: A viral video circulating on social media in October 2023 falsely claimed that Zambian president Hakainde Hichilema announced he would not run in the 2026 elections. Fact-checkers and digital forensics experts confirmed the video was manipulated using basic AI tools. The footage originated from a TikTok account known for AI-generated content.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: Unknown deepfake technology developer developed an AI system deployed by @zambian_ai TikTok account and Unknown actors, which harmed Hakainde Hichilema , General public of Zambia , Electoral integrity , Democracy and United Party for National Development (UPND).
Alleged implicated AI systems: Unknown deepfake apps and TikTok
Incident Stats
Incident ID
1022
Report Count
1
Incident Date
2023-10-12
Editors
Daniel Atherton
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline

IN SHORT: The video was fabricated using artificial intelligence, and has been debunked by multiple experts. The country's ruling party also confirmed it was a fake, and Zambian police launched an investigation into the video's creator. The…
Variants
A "variant" is an incident that shares the same causative factors, produces similar harms, and involves the same intelligent systems as a known AI incident. Rather than index variants as entirely separate incidents, we list variations of incidents under the first similar incident submitted to the database. Unlike other submission types to the incident database, variants are not required to have reporting in evidence external to the Incident Database. Learn more from the research paper.
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