A malicious deepfake video was created using AI to falsely show Irish presidential candidate Catherine Connolly withdrawing from the election, which was viewed nearly 30,000 times on Facebook before being removed.
A deepfake AI video was created and posted online that falsely depicted Irish presidential candidate Catherine Connolly announcing her withdrawal from the presidential election scheduled for Friday. The video was designed to mimic an RTE News bulletin and featured AI-generated versions of RTE newsreader Sharon Ni Bheolain and political correspondent Paul Cunningham, along with a fake version of Connolly herself. The video was posted to a Facebook account called 'RTE News AI' on Tuesday night and was viewed almost 30,000 times and shared nearly 200 times before being removed after approximately 12 hours. The video falsely claimed that Connolly's withdrawal would result in the election being cancelled and her rival Heather Humphreys winning by default. Connolly, who holds a commanding lead in polls at 38 percent support, lodged a formal complaint with the Electoral Commission and called the video a 'disgraceful attempt to mislead voters and undermine our democracy.' Meta removed the account after being contacted by media, citing violations of community standards regarding impersonation. Technical analysis revealed subtle AI artifacts including over-pronunciations and visual auras that indicated the video's artificial nature.
Domain classification, causal taxonomy, severity scores, and national security assessments were LLM-classified and may contain errors.
Using AI systems to conduct large-scale disinformation campaigns, malicious surveillance, or targeted and sophisticated automated censorship and propaganda, with the aim of manipulating political processes, public opinion, and behavior.
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