Indonesian political parties used AI-generated deepfake videos of deceased dictator Suharto and other AI content to manipulate voters ahead of the February 2024 elections, with the Suharto deepfake receiving over 4.7 million views.
Ahead of Indonesia's February 14, 2024 elections, multiple political parties deployed AI-generated content to influence over 200 million voters. The Golkar party created a deepfake video of former dictator Suharto, who died in 2008, using AI tools that cloned his face and voice. The three-minute video received over 4.7 million views on X and spread across TikTok, Facebook and YouTube. Golkar deputy chairman Erwin Aksa shared the video to encourage support for their endorsed presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto, Suharto's former son-in-law. Other parties also used AI extensively - Prabowo's campaign team admitted to using AI software to create animated content on TikTok targeting young voters, and used AI-generated children in TV commercials to circumvent rules banning real children from political campaigns. Former Central Java Governor Ganjar Pranowo's party deployed an interactive AI chatbot and AI-generated photos. Presidential candidate Anies Baswedan became a victim of an audio deepfake showing a fabricated conversation. Indonesia's Communications Ministry issued advisories warning about deepfakes, but watchdog groups said efforts were insufficient. Critics condemned the use of deceased individuals for political propaganda and warned about AI's potential for voter manipulation in a country with high internet usage rates.
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.
Human
Due to a decision or action made by humans
Intentional
Due to an expected outcome from pursuing a goal
Post-deployment
Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed