HISPI Project Cerebellum HISPI PROJECT CEREBELLUM

Purported Deepfake Videos Reportedly Impersonated Yanis Varoufakis on YouTube and Social Media

January 5, 2026

In late 2025 and early 2026, reported deepfake videos mimicking Greek economist and politician Yanis Varoufakis surfaced on YouTube and various social media platforms. These videos displayed a synthesized likeness of Varoufakis delivering false political statements, particularly regarding international events. Although some videos were removed, they recurred under different accounts. This incident underscores the importance of safe and secure AI practices. For those interested in shaping the future of AI governance and preventing such incidents, join us at HISPI Project Cerebellum TAIM (Govern), where we strive to map, measure, manage, and mitigate harmful AI incidents.
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Matched TAIM controls

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Alleged deployer
unknown-deepfake-content-creators, unknown-deepfake-content-creators-impersonating-yanis-varoufakis
Alleged developer
unknown-deepfake-technology-developers, unknown-voice-cloning-technology-developers
Alleged harmed parties
yanis-varoufakis, epistemic-integrity, youtube-users, social-media-users

Source

Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/1331

Data source

Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).

When citing the database as a whole, please use:

McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.

Pre-print on arXiv · Database snapshots & citation guide

We use weekly snapshots of the AIID for stable reference. For the official suggested citation of a specific incident, use the “Cite this incident” link on each incident page.