🔎 A Recent Case: Misattributed LA Protest Footage (June 2025)

In June 2025, as immigration enforcement actions sparked protests in Los Angeles, a claim (archived) circulated that a video authentically showed burning, graffitied police cars during protests in the city in June 2025. However, the footage claiming to show protests in June 2025 was miscaptioned. Some key themes from this case can be easily exacerbated with AI:

Use of recycled content ("stealing thunder") to manufacture chaos
Cultural targeting via translated disinformation spread on WeChat, X, and Telegram
The role of ethnic media in both amplifying and debunking false narratives
Strategic narratives about immigrant protestors as criminals or outside agitators

🟣 Targeted Disinformation Tactics

AI-generated misinformation doesn’t affect all communities equally. Women of color, immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, and other marginalized groups are often the primary targets of political misinformation campaigns. These can take the form of:

Deepfake pornography targeting women and girls
Voter suppression messages sent to Black or immigrant communities
Misleading memes that link DEI policies to disasters or crime

These attacks aren’t accidental—they are part of broader strategies to undermine trust, silence participation, and discredit political voices from marginalized groups.

Watch the 9-minute segment of this video (1:29-10:49) from PBS's Chicago Tonight: Latino Voices aired on November 4, 2022. It explores how Latino communities have been increasingly targeted with election-related misinformation, particularly through platforms like WhatsApp.

🌐 Global Impacts

According to UN, a survey of women aged 18 – 55 in Denmark, Italy, New Zealand, Poland, Spain, Sweden, the UK and the USA found that 23 per cent of women reported at least one experience of online abuse or harassment.

While all women and girls may experience digital abuse, online violence, or technology-facilitated gender-based violence, some groups are at greater risk.

90% of all deepfake video content consisting of non-consensual pornography targets women and girls, including Italy's PM.