From Joe Biden to President Donald Trump, our nation’s biggest political figures have found themselves increasingly becoming the subject of satirical content generated by artificial intelligence.
Even the sitting Navajo Nation president can’t escape scrutiny. Buu Nygren narrowly lost his July primary by a margin of a little more than 1,100 votes. Could slings of AI parody be partly to blame?
With each passing day, it gets harder to figure out what’s real or a fake in our ever-evolving digital world. Take a video posted online that purports to show President Nygren sobbing outside of a Bashas' grocery store.
“Navajo Times, the Internet is making fun of me,” bemoans Nygren. “Make them stop.”
This lifelike clip is a deepfake — one of many that have been making the rounds within Diné social media circles for months now. Another shows Nygren wearing a gold crown bejeweled turquoise stones, saying “Re-election? King Buu does not need the peasants’ permission to stay king.”
This all comes from Navajo AI — a satire account that started posting videos a year ago. The anonymous creator has since racked up nearly 3 million views across TikTok, Facebook and YouTube — so popular that the tribe’s chief prosecutor penned a November op-ed against deepfakes.
Chief Prosecutor Verlon L. Jackson Sr., who was appointed by Nygren’s predecessor, Jonathan Nez, wrote most AI deepfakes may be misleading or in poor taste but are “not criminal.”
He claimed about only 10% of them “clearly crosses the line.”
Jackson doubled-down on a previous pledge by his independent office to “investigate and, if necessary, prosecute” anyone who uses “digital deception to harm our people,” including “outside forces, or even individuals within.”
The chief prosecutor stressed this new stance has nothing to do with politics. Rather, he argued this undertaking is “about the safety of our people, the dignity of our victims, and the integrity of our Nation’s laws.”
“Deepfake attacks and other modern crimes do more than target public officials, they create real victims by spreading fear, shame, and distrust in our communities,” Jackson continued. “Our core responsibility is to those victims. That is the foundation of this work.”
KJZZ’s several requests to speak with Jackson went unanswered.
‘Only my family members know’
The prosecutor’s stern warnings haven’t slowed down the creator behind Navajo AI.
KJZZ has agreed not to use his real name.
When I asked him whether anyone — including Nygren himself — is aware of his true identity, he replied: “I think only my family members know. ... I do worry about old people getting confused about some of the videos.”
“Because that’s not what I’m trying to do.”
This middle-aged Navajo man — who lives on the rez in Piñon — explained he’s trying to poke fun at his scandal-ridden president.
The Diné content creator takes pride in perfecting his high-tech craft by spending a few hours every night glued to his screens “because sometimes I have to make a video over and over till it comes out right.”
“Sometimes they’ll come out wrong, messed up — AI slop.”
Navajo AI also released an eight-tune diss track dubbed “Navajo President” under his musical pseudonym Rez-I-Due. It's streamable on Spotify. Like the music, the album cover art is also AI-generated.
It features Nygren’s likeness hiding his face in shame next to stacks of cash.
From titles “B.A.D.B.U.U.” to “24 Million Dollaz,” Navajo AI’s personal favorite is “Can’t Believe I Voted For Buu” — because he was once a Nygren supporter who has since soured on his administration.
“The album, I did that over a weekend,” he shared. “I put too much into the lyrics. I wanted, like, catchy hooks.”
Take a sample from “President Buu [F— Buu].”
The first verse begins: “Back in the red clay of a painted desert, I found me a high chief who wore a funny black hat. Said his name was Buu Nygren and he was the president of all the Navajo and he said, ‘Gimme your dollar bills. I’m gonna use them for good, I swear I will.’ That’s what he said.”
Then comes the expletive-filled chorus: “And I said, ‘F— Buu, f— President Buu, f— Buu, and all of his goons, he’s a grifter and a crook. Look at his pockets, full of loot. F— Buu, f— Buu.’”
Following his annual state address, Nygren responded to the “spread of fake or misleading” AI-generated social media content. Back in January, he recognized how “fabricated videos and images have circulated that claim to show me saying or doing things that never occurred.”
“As this technology becomes more sophisticated, it is harder to distinguish what is real from what is not,” Nygren wrote. “That is why it is more important than ever to pause, question what we see, and seek reliable sources. Do not rely only on headlines or short clips. If something feels wrong, it likely is.”
While the president acknowledged that AI could be “a powerful tool for good,” it can also be harmful, especially to elders. “Out of respect and care for them, we should take extra steps to explain, verify, and help them navigate what they are seeing.”
“My administration is committed to raising awareness about this growing concern, but addressing it requires all of us,” added Nygren. “Use discretion. Ask questions. Verify before sharing. Together, we can protect the truth, support one another, and move forward responsibly in this digital age.”
‘The right balance’
While the First Amendment enshrines free speech in the U.S., that right is still up for debate in Indian Country, according to Hopi judge Trevor Reed, who teaches copyright law at the University of California, Irvine and is a Heard Museum trustee.
“Tribes aren’t necessarily subject to the Bill of Rights, and so the question is like, what’s the right balance,” said Reed. “Tribes are essentially able to make their own contours of whether they want to protect parody, and same thing with privacy and with your right of publicity.”
“We need to at least have some breathing room for people to express themselves,” he continued. “But we also, I think, as societies, we generally believe in protecting our own identities from misrepresentation.”
Now, the Navajo Nation is trekking into this AI frontier and preparing for the tough conversations that may come with it. Last week, a daylong gathering, the Diné Data Sovereignty Symposium, began to unpack AI, algorithms and Indigenous intellectual property in Window Rock.
Rhode Island School of Design assistant professor Angelo Baca, who is Diné and Hopi, was instrumental in organizing that tech-driven dialogue. He’s been on the front lines of AI research in Indian Country.
“We shouldn't shy away from the hard conversations, even though they can be kind of abstract. It’s also a generational issue,” Baca said. “We have grandparents who don’t understand the technology. We have middle-aged folks who know what it is but don’t necessarily know how to use it. And then we have young people who are very well-versed, digitally literate and are super advanced.”
That discourse is also taking shape through legislation.
Diné scholars and traditional practitioners are being assembled — pending approval from the Navajo Nation Council. Delegate Andy Nez created legislation that would establish the “Navajo Nation AI Policy Development Working Group.”
It would give direction to the drafting of a policy that could include labeling things like language, sacred spaces and ceremonies as IP. For now, the jury is out about whether copyright law will be used to stifle AI free speech.
“That’s also going to be an interesting part of the discussion, too,” said Navajo DOJ Deputy Attorney General Katherine Belzowski. “Will AI fall into that more traditional trademark situation where it’s like, we can use it as Navajos and create things, but we want to assert a right against other people using it?”
She clarified that the tribe’s DOJ “isn’t necessarily taking a position on how it should be done or how Navajo should interact with AI.” Instead the Justice Department is solely keen on enforcing the Nation’s IP and copyright laws.
On Thursday, the Naabik’íyáti’ Committee unanimously approved Nez’s measure to create the AI working group. This body will have a year to report its findings and recommendations upon selecting all of its members.
‘Hopefully it made a difference’
A few days after Nygren’s primary loss, the man behind Navajo AI told me that was really his plan all along. Lately, he’s seeing more mindful Navajos empowered to speak up from across the broad political spectrum, like GyCD, Navajo Deep State, Honey Honeycomb and the Phoenix Chapter House — to list a few.
“Hopefully it made a difference. We’ll see how the new president is once they come in,” said the anonymous Navajo AI creator. “I’m not sure who I would vote for yet, but I’m just hoping that they would do a lot better.”
As for what’s next, Navajo AI shared he’ll be watching and waiting to see who wins the November general: “I might make some Buu Nygren videos just, you know, for his way out.”
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