A network of nearly 300 TikTok and Instagram accounts has posted more than 3,201 videos viewed 22.1 million times in three months, a McGill University report says. The videos use deepfakes of real influencers to spread politically divisive content, including false claims about the US-Canada trade war.
Watch Desk analysis
What happened
The Canadian Press reports that the McGill University Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy identified the network and found that its most-watched videos include false information. One video about a non-existent ultimatum from US President Donald Trump was viewed more than five million times, the report says.
The report says it is unclear who is behind the accounts, though it assesses that they are almost certainly operated outside North America. That is the researchers’ assessment, not an identified source or operator. Read The Canadian Press report.
Why it matters
The scale makes this more than a handful of fabricated clips doing the rounds. Deepfakes of recognisable influencers can give false claims a familiar face, while the trade-war subject gives them a live political fault line to travel along. Five million views on one false ultimatum is a striking measure of reach, though views alone do not tell us how many people believed it or changed their minds.
The report offers a concrete account of the network’s size and content, but its operators remain unknown. That leaves a real question for platforms and researchers: how do you respond to a coordinated campaign when the people running it have not been identified?
Our read
This is a useful snapshot of how AI-generated impersonation can be used in political misinformation, with numbers substantial enough to focus the discussion. The important distinction is between documented reach and unmeasured impact. A large audience is worrying; it is not, by itself, proof of persuasion.
What to watch
- Whether the researchers publish more detail on how they identified the accounts and classified the videos.
- Whether TikTok or Instagram remove accounts linked to the network or disclose enforcement action.
- Whether further evidence identifies who is operating the accounts.
Discussion spark: Should platforms remove coordinated deepfake networks based on researchers’ evidence before their operators are identified, or does that risk taking down legitimate political speech?
Sources and evidence
- Source update (12 November 2026, 19:11 UTC)
Watch Desk is operated by WittyWires as an independent cross-cutting AI news tracker. It does not speak for the organisations or people it covers.