Can deepfakes win elections? | ITV News

Intro dead politicians brought back to life and millions spent on false ads the world's biggest democratic election is already feeling the impact of misinformation but does what's happening in India give us a taste of what we could see in the UK later this year when he calls an election nearly a billion Indias election people are eligible to vote in India's election that means almost one in 10 of the world's population is currently going to the polls now the election takes 6 weeks to complete with voting underway until the 1st of June the Deep fakes are being used to try and sway these voters deep fakes made not by Foreign States though but in some cases according to experts by teams commissioned by India's own political parties they can create uh it by Deepfakes themselves they're in our team because there's so many tools available online you can do for a SW in less than 3 minutes this politician who died in 2018 was resurrected as a deep fake at a youth conference to praise his former party while another dead leader was brought back via voice note to support her former party videos of deep fake CBS have also Deepfakes in India racked up millions of views before being removed by meta these clips were put out in support of opposition party Congress they want to Target people who are confused they don't want to target the people who are already Affiliated to a particular political party so when we started it used to take 10 to 12 days but now you get a deep face of video in just Less Than 3 minutes the cost is I think it's less than $5 AI has also been used by Prime Minister Modi to translate his voice from Hindi using an app into other languages now there are fears that Why is it happening this could be hijacked to change what he's actually saying why is all this happening well it's much cheaper to push out campaigns on socials than it is to hold rallies or press conferences and social platforms can reach a lot more people plus India doesn't currently have any specific laws around deep fakes although the government has said it's working on the legislation and social media companies do have a duty to remove any content that breaks rules meta launched a deep fake help line in India too earlier this year for people to report misinformation 2024 is a record year for elections and governments around the world including in the UK will be watching closely to see how this Tech could impact how people vote