As public sector communicators we can expect deepfakes to try and throw elections… but as satire?
In the final days of Euro 2024 a rash of fake videos involving England manager Gareth Southgate were posted. But rather than derail a campaign these were so obviously fakes that it’s worth asking what’s the point.
Here’s one after England beat Holland.
Would an England manager celebrate drug use? Of course not.
The quality of the deepfake isn’t the best. The audio doesn’t quite synch with the video and it’s fairly easy to spot the joins.
So why did they bother?
For the LOLs of course. It’s a chance to spoof and to post satire. In the 19th century ‘Punch’ cornered the market with cartoons. Just lately, photo shop satire has even been part of the official political campaign such as this spoof of Rishi Sunak’s bad mortgage advice.
Of course, it’s tempting to disregard AI deepfakes like this.
But not so long ago there was a Gareth Southgate-related clip that really had me guessing. This was an interview with an Arsenal defender who had ruled himself out of being picked by the England manager.
This time it was believable and skillfully edited with cutaways in the style of a Sky Sports package. I’ll confess I went looking online for corroboration.
That video is this…
So, what does this mean?
The technology is there, getting better and bad actors need to base what they do in reality for it to really cut through.