An AI-generated video falsely depicting Bulgarian politician Kostadin Kostadinov falling while jumping over a fence at a protest was created using Haliuo AI and spread on social media, misleading viewers about events that never occurred.
On June 12, 2025, an AI-generated video was published on Facebook showing Bulgarian politician Kostadin Kostadinov appearing to fall while jumping over a fence during a protest. The 6-second video was created using Haliuo AI, a platform for generating video from images, based on a photograph taken by a Bulgarian Telegraph Agency (BTA) photographer during an anti-euro adoption protest organized by Kostadinov's 'Vazrazhdane' party on June 8. The video was first published at 12:47 Bulgarian time by the 'Visoko naprezenie' Facebook page, then republished by 'Mario Stefanov' profile at 15:08, and later by Budilnikbg.com at 19:59. The three posts collectively received nearly 2,800 likes and over one million views. The video contained several technical indicators of AI generation including square format typical of AI generators, 6-second duration matching free AI tool limitations, partially obscured Haliuo AI watermark in the bottom right corner, and visual artifacts such as unnaturally changing faces, deformed hands, and distorted facial features. BTA confirmed they published no authentic video of Kostadinov actually jumping the fence. The incident represents a case of AI-generated misinformation spreading false information about a political figure to a large audience.
Domain classification, causal taxonomy, severity scores, and national security assessments were LLM-classified and may contain errors.
AI systems that inadvertently generate or spread incorrect or deceptive information, which can lead to inaccurate beliefs in users and undermine their autonomy. Humans that make decisions based on false beliefs can experience physical, emotional or material harms
AI system
Due to a decision or action made by an AI system
Intentional
Due to an expected outcome from pursuing a goal
Post-deployment
Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed
