GCD AI RADAR
incidents/AIR-2020-0005

BJP Used Deepfake Videos of Manoj Tiwari in Delhi Election

AI-enabled attack3 Confirmed exploitationDeepfake fraud

Political actors used deepfake videos of leader Manoj Tiwari delivering campaign messages in languages he did not speak to influence voters. The deepfakes were distributed via thousands of WhatsApp groups without disclosure.

Details

type
AI-enabled attack
Attackers used AI as a meaningful part of a cyberattack against someone else.
categories
  • Deepfake fraud
    Synthetic voice, video or images used to impersonate people for fraud, extortion or access.
owasp llm top 10
no entry for these categories
mitre atlas
Both rows are derived from the type and categories (OWASP 2025 edition, ATLAS release 2026.09), not classified per record. How
severity
3 · Confirmed exploitation
Used against real targets; limited or unclear impact.
targets
Individuals
products
WhatsApp
incident date
7 Feb 2020
first reported
24 Jun 2020
origin
AI Incident Database
Derived from the AI Incident Database (CC BY-SA 4.0).
classifier confidence
0.85 · published at or above 0.80; see the methodology
tags
deepfake · election · misinformation · whatsapp
record
created 2026-10-18 06:33Z · updated 2026-10-18 06:59Z · json

Sources · 2

  1. 2020-06-24
    BJP Used Deepfake Videos of Manoj Tiwari to Target Haryanvi Voters in 2020 Delhi Election
    AI Incident Database · incidentdatabase.ai/cite/1336
  2. 2020-06-24
    Wrongfully Accused by an Algorithm
    The New York Times · nytimes.com/2020/06/24/technology/facial-recognition-arrest.html

Titles and links belong to their publishers. The summary above is written by GCD AI RADAR in its own words; data is CC BY-SA 4.0.

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