As the election approaches, deepfakes are getting more and more attention. These things spread like a bad flu when you rely more and more on technology.
They are often a political weapon. Thousands of people in New Hampshire received automated calls before the primary election in which a voice that sounded like President Joe Biden urged them to stay home and not vote. In 2023, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis used a video with artificial intelligence-generated images of former President Donald Trump hugging Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Sometimes they are abused as a tool by supporters, critics, or simply those who want to create chaos. Billionaire Elon Musk posted a fake campaign video on his platform X.com (formerly Twitter), using a voice that sounds like that of Vice President Kamala Harris.
“This is incredible,” Musk said.
“This is a violation of @X’s synthetic media and misleading identity policies. Will you change these retroactively to allow violations in an election year?” replied author and digital expert Alexander Howard.
But these high-tech dangers are only part of the threats lurking in the social media and electronic waters before November. There are also low-tech problems. These are known as “cheap knockoffs.”
An interview with Democratic U.S. Senator John Fetterman of Braddock on Wednesday highlighted the potential risks of editing and misrepresentation.
Fetterman has distanced himself from some of the Democratic Party’s more left-leaning positions over the past year. In an interview with NBC News in December, for example, he said he was not a progressive. Politico said he opposed Gov. Josh Shapiro as a possible running mate for Harris; Fetterman has denied this.
But a clip of the interview posted on X.com by RNC Research — an account managed by the Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign — is accompanied by the post, “WE AGREE, FETTERMAN: If you put Trump and Harris face to face … I think he will win Pennsylvania.”
Is that possible? Sure. Trump won Pennsylvania in 2016. But it’s also possible he won’t, since Trump lost in 2020. Pennsylvania is the biggest swing state and is often a reliable indicator of who will win the White House.
But that’s not what Fetterman said either.
The interview was conducted with Greta Van Susteren on Newsmax. The senator said he believes the race will be close but will end with a Harris victory. However, in the strategically edited clip, Fetterman slipped up and said “he” instead of “she.” Fetterman suffered a stroke in 2022 days before the primaries and had problems with speech and auditory processing afterward.
His support for his party’s candidate is clear from the full speech. The cherry-picking does not. That’s unfair to Fetterman and Harris. It’s also unfair to Democratic and Republican voters who might get the wrong impression of Fetterman’s analysis and make their decisions accordingly.
It is important for every voter to read the articles critically. But it is even more important to receive the videos and audio files presented on the Internet with a healthy dose of skepticism, if not outright cynicism.
The text of a social media post, like a headline, should always be the starting point. If you see a snippet of an interview, follow the trail to get the full story. If a story sounds surprising, engage and do your research before sharing it with your friends.
The 2024 elections are important on every level: presidential elections, Senate elections, congressional elections, state elections. We cannot fall for a cheap copy of a deepfake threat to our democracy.
