48 Hours Before Slovakia's Election, a Deepfake Audio of the Opposition Leader 'Planning to Rig the Vote and Raise Beer Prices' Spreads on Facebook. He Loses.
On September 29, 2023, two days before Slovakia's tightest parliamentary election in a decade, a 2-minute audio clip surfaced on Facebook appearing to show Progressive Slovakia leader Michal Šimečka discussing how to rig the vote with a journalist — and boasting he'd double the price of beer. The clip was AI-generated; the 48-hour 'silence period' before elections legally prevented Šimečka from rebutting via broadcast media. Meta's deepfake policy at the time only covered video, not audio. His party lost. Pro-Russia candidate Robert Fico won. The Slovakia deepfake is cited by the EU AI Act as a primary example of democratic harm from synthetic media.
48 Hours Before Slovakia's Election, a Deepfake Audio of the Opposition Leader 'Planning to Rig the Vote and Raise Beer Prices' Spreads on Facebook. He Loses.
On September 29, 2023, two days before Slovakia's tightest parliamentary election in a decade, a 2-minute audio clip surfaced on Facebook appearing to show Progressive Slovakia leader Michal Šimečka discussing how to rig the vote with a journalist — and boasting he'd double the price of beer. The clip was AI-generated; the 48-hour 'silence period' before elections legally prevented Šimečka from rebutting via broadcast media. Meta's deepfake policy at the time only covered video, not audio. His party lost. Pro-Russia candidate Robert Fico won. The Slovakia deepfake is cited by the EU AI Act as a primary example of democratic harm from synthetic media.
Weirdness Classification
10/10 — Deeply unhinged
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