Graphika: two likely deepfakes accusing Texas Senate candidate James Talarico of assault are linked to the Russian operation Storm-1516
Prepared by Sintelligent with the help of SI. Published in SI: . Updated: .
Deepfakes with invented accusations have become a tool of election influence, and researchers can already tie them to specific operations — but the conclusions remain a company's assessment.
According to an assessment by the research company Graphika, made "with high confidence," the Russian influence operation Storm-1516 created two likely deepfakes posted on October 20, 2026, in which a man who calls himself former student Zyon Lewis claims that Democratic US Senate candidate James Talarico assaulted him in January 2012. Signs of forgery, per the report, are movements that do not match the audio, near-total body stillness and findings of SI-generation analysis tools. The main platform is X; the videos were also on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Threads, TikTok and YouTube, and were shared by known Storm-1516 accounts. A "Zyon Lewis" account on X created in September 2026 is, in Graphika's assessment, "very likely" impersonating a real Facebook user from Converse, Texas. The Russian side's reaction to this assessment was not found in the sources checked.
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