21 Oct 2025IrelandUnidentified video tool
On the night of Tuesday 21 October 2025, three days before Ireland's presidential election, a video mimicking an RTÉ News bulletin appeared on Facebook and other platforms in which AI-generated versions of an RTÉ presenter and of independent candidate Catherine Connolly announced her withdrawal, and an AI-generated RTÉ political correspondent said the election was cancelled. An emeritus professor of computing told BBC Verify that over-pronounced lip movements and a slight aura around the reporter gave the video away, and the Electoral Commission called it an AI-generated video and escalated it to the platforms. Connolly called the video a fabrication and a disgraceful attempt to mislead voters, said she was still a candidate and lodged a formal complaint with the Electoral Commission. Meta removed the posting account for impersonation and YouTube removed the video and its channel; the Irish Examiner reported that it could still be viewed on X.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources · Added 02/11/2026
29 Oct 2026TaiwanUnidentified voice-cloning tool
A recording that imitated the voice of Puma Shen (Shen Po-yang), the Democratic Progressive Party's candidate for mayor of Taipei, appeared on Threads late on 29 October 2026 under a caption calling it a suspected private recording; in it the voice admitted taking kickbacks from US arms purchases. Taiwan's Investigation Bureau said its forensic check confirmed the audio as deepfake content, and Taoyuan prosecutors said a man had made the clip with a highly realistic imitation of Shen's voice and spread it on social media. Prosecutors arrested him on 30 October, seized his phone and sought his detention for spreading falsehoods by a deepfake-voice method to make a candidate lose, an offence under the election law that carries up to seven years in prison. The Taoyuan District Court released him on NT$100,000 bail with an eight-month travel ban, CNA reports. At the hearing he admitted spreading the clip but said he had downloaded it from Facebook, and the court found the file did not yet show a link to whoever originally made it, TVBS reports. Shen said his team had taken legal action against those who made and shared the clip. The man is not named here.
Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 5 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 31/10/2026
Oct 2025United KingdomUnidentified video tool (suspected)
In October 2025 a video spread on Facebook and X that appeared to show George Freeman, the Conservative MP for Mid Norfolk and a former science minister, announcing that he was leaving the Conservatives to join Reform UK. Full Fact said on 20 October that the clip was very likely made using artificial intelligence: it matched his outfit and the Westminster background to a video he posted in April 2020, described the audio as stiff and unnaturally even, and said AI appeared to have been used to lip-sync the false words, while noting that an impersonator could not be ruled out. Freeman called the video an AI-generated deepfake made without his knowledge or consent and reported it to police. Norfolk Police said it was contacted on 16 October by the office of an MP about the video and opened an investigation into a potential false-communications offence. Freeman later told the Observer that friends and colleagues had sent him messages accusing him of betrayal, that Meta told him the video did not breach its guidelines, and that he found no law against the use of his identity; LBC reported in March 2026 that police told him it was not illegal. An anonymous creator told a local newspaper the video was made to show that people cannot tell fact from fiction.
Core concern Low reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution supported · 6 sources · Added 31/10/2026
Event date unknownUnited StatesUnidentified AI voice agent
In October 2026 Thrive LA, a super PAC backing Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, put up signs and social media adverts for a phone line billed as "Nithya Raman Realty", after the city council member challenging Bass for mayor. Callers reach an AI-generated voice that speaks in the first person as Raman and converses with them; on a FOX 11 call it said "I'm as imaginary as my campaign promises". On 26 October Raman's campaign filed complaints with the California Fair Political Practices Commission and the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission, alleging the PAC used AI to impersonate her and fabricate her words without proper AI and funding disclosures, in breach of state election law. Thrive LA's executive director said AI was a tool for political satire, that callers would know it is AI, and, per the Los Angeles Times as relayed by Hoodline, called the complaint false and absurd. The complaints are allegations; no finding has been reported.
Core concern Low reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 29/10/2026
Sept 2025IrelandUnidentified video tool
In September 2025, during the campaign for Ireland's presidential election, fake videos circulated mainly on Facebook and Instagram showing Fine Gael candidate Heather Humphreys endorsing a high-return investment platform called Quantum AI, presented as an RTÉ News segment. Bank of Ireland warned consumers on 11 September that the content was entirely fabricated using AI-driven voice and image cloning and that more such adverts were likely, without stating how it reached that view. A spokesman for Humphreys said the videos had been reported to Meta and called for their immediate removal, and Meta said that evening that it had taken them down. No person who lost money to these particular videos is described in the sources.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources · Added 29/10/2026
Oct 2026United StatesUnidentified video tool
In October 2026 a 30-second television attack ad paid for by the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) and approved by Republican state Rep. Jennifer Balkcom, the candidate in North Carolina's 11th congressional district, showed her Democratic opponent Jamie Ager at a barn dance with drag performers. A News & Observer fact check says the ad features videos generated by artificial intelligence and appears to manipulate real footage from one of Ager's own campaign ads, adding a pride flag to the barn wall and filling the barn with drag queens; the ad carries no AI disclaimer, and North Carolina has no AI-disclosure law for political ads. An Asheville drag performer shown in the ad told WLOS that the scene never happened, that she has never met Ager, that her likeness was used without permission and that she sent a cease-and-desist letter; Ager called the ad 100% fake AI-generated lies. Other performers named in the ad also objected. The NRCC said it stands by the ad.
Core concern Low reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 5 sources, 3 underlying accounts · Added 28/10/2026
Event date unknownKosovoUnidentified video tool
Kallxo's fact-checking unit Krypometer reported on 15 May 2026, ahead of Kosovo's 7 June early election, that a Facebook profile had published two videos involving Paris Guri, a former member of parliament for the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK). The first showed members of the LDK Youth Forum, with Guri among them, holding bottles of milk. Krypometer says the HIVE detector gave a 97 per cent probability that it was edited with AI, and a Google Lens search found the original photo, published by Guri, in which the group raise two fingers, the LDK's symbol, instead. The second video purported to show Guri praising Albin Kurti and was shared with a Serbian-language caption calling him a beauty; Krypometer says HIVE results show the video and its speech were manipulated with AI. Guri told Krypometer the videos are manipulated. Who made them, which tool was used and how widely they spread are not reported.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 28/10/2026
20 Oct 2026Event location unknownUnidentified video tool (suspected)
On 20 October 2026, during early voting in Texas, a newly created X account posted two videos in which a man presented himself as a former student of James Talarico, the Democratic US Senate candidate and a former middle-school teacher, and accused him of sexual assault in 2012. The threat-intelligence firm Graphika said the account very likely impersonated a real Facebook user of the same name who had been Talarico's student and had praised him, assessed the videos as very likely deepfakes because the face moved unnaturally or out of sync with the audio and AI analysis tools indicated AI generation, and attributed them with high confidence to the Russia-aligned influence operation Storm-1516. PolitiFact reported that NewsGuard found many signs of AI generation and a 98 percent detector score, and that the real former student told the fact-checkers Lead Stories the video was not of him and denied accusing Talarico. Talarico's campaign said he was being slandered with AI deepfakes, foreign bots and conspiracy theories. PolitiFact rated the claim Pants on Fire. Who made the videos and how many people saw them is not established.
Core + contextual relations Medium reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 25/10/2026
May 2025Event location unknownUnidentified video tool
In May 2025, days after his election, a video circulated on YouTube, Facebook and X in which Pope Leo XIV appears to read an English-language address praising Burkina Faso's military leader, Captain Ibrahim Traoré. The Holy See's Vatican News service published an article on 21 May saying the speech had been created with artificial intelligence and falsely attributed to the Pope, and that footage from his 12 May audience with journalists had been morphed so that his lips matched AI-generated words. AFP Fact Check traced the footage to the same press audience, where the Pope spoke in Italian and did not mention Africa or Traoré, and reported that an audio forensic tool gave a 99 percent probability that the audio was AI-generated. CNA reported in September 2025 that the video received at least a million views before YouTube terminated the account that posted it, and that the Vatican's communications office spends much of its time reporting accounts that post AI videos of the Pope. The YouTube channel's description, as AFP reports, called the video a work of fiction.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources · Added 25/10/2026
1 Oct 2026United StatesUnidentified video tool
In early October 2026 the campaign of Scott Colom, the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in Mississippi, posted on social media a 19-second AI-generated video showing a woman made to look like his opponent, Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, running from a crowd of reporters at the U.S. Capitol and getting into a car. Local outlets report that the post called it "based on a true story" and did not disclose that it was made with AI. Hyde-Smith's campaign manager called it an AI video and part of a campaign of "lies and deception". On 22 October the Mississippi Republican Party asked the state Attorney General to investigate whether the video broke a state law against knowingly spreading a deceptive AI depiction of a candidate within 90 days of an election, and to seek an injunction. Colom's campaign manager defended the campaign's use of AI and called the complaint desperate; the law exempts satire and parody. On Friday 23 October Attorney General Lynn Fitch said she had notified the campaign that its AI-generated ads appeared to violate the state law against political deepfakes and asked that they be removed that afternoon, or her office might seek an injunction. Colom called the video parody but said the campaign would delete the post rather than spend donors' money on litigation, and by that afternoon two Mississippi stations reported that it no longer appeared on the campaign's Facebook page. No court has ruled on whether the video broke the law.
Core concern Low reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 7 sources, 5 underlying accounts · Added 23/10/2026
21 Oct 2026SpainUnidentified video tool
During the campaign for Spain's 29 November general election, the Partido Popular (PP) posted on its official social media accounts on 21 October 2026 a video made with artificial intelligence, labelled as AI content, that parodies a PSOE campaign video. It shows AI-generated likenesses of the prime minister's wife Begoña Gómez, former prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, former minister José Luis Ábalos, former PSOE officials Santos Cerdán and Montse Mínguez and former party member Leire Díez, with imitated voices, each appearing to confess alleged crimes or irregular conduct. PSOE sources told Europa Press the party was studying legal action over the video, which elDiario.es and Cadena SER describe as impersonating these people, and PSOE's organisation secretary said the PP had nothing to offer but insults. PP spokespeople defended the video, saying it was clearly recognisable as AI. Europa Press reported more than a million views on X. By 23 October 2026 Leire Díez, one of the people depicted, had filed a criminal complaint (querella) against the PP for alleged defamation with publicity, offences against moral integrity and digital identity impersonation, asking for the video's provisional removal; Europa Press reports it was sent to the Madrid courts at Plaza de Castilla and El País that it was filed at the Audiencia Nacional. The complaint says the video uses artificial intelligence and her image and voice to accuse her of a serious crime, that its statements are false, that it had more than 21 million views, and that she and her daughters have had to isolate at home and she suffered an anxiety attack. Jurists consulted by El País considered a criminal case unlikely to succeed given the latitude for political satire and the video's AI label. On 28 October 2026 the prime minister said in a podcast interview that his wife, Begoña Gómez, had filed a complaint over the video for impersonation of her image; RTVE and El Periódico, which say they had access to the filing, report that it is directed at whoever runs the PP's official social-media profiles and anyone in the party who instructed them, asks that PP secretary general Miguel Tellado testify, and says she never said those words, took no part in the video and did not consent to the use of her image or voice. The PP answered on social media with irony.
Core concern Medium reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 8 sources, 7 underlying accounts · Added 23/10/2026
Feb 2026HungaryUnidentified video tool
In early February 2026, two months before Hungary's 12 April parliamentary election, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán shared on Facebook a video in which European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, speaking Hungarian, phones opposition leader Péter Magyar and tells him to send money to Ukraine, and the depicted Magyar answers that the election must be won first. Orbán's caption said the scene was for now only the work of artificial intelligence but could become reality after 12 April. The BBC reports that a pro-Fidesz activist group shared the video without disclosing that it was made with AI. Magyar said the prime minister was misleading Hungarians with fake videos, announced that he would start legal proceedings and asked followers to report the post to Meta. No outcome of those steps is reported in the sources read.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 5 sources · Added 23/10/2026
2020Event location unknownHireVue
City AM and Cosmetics Business reported in March 2022, relaying the BBC Three documentary Computer Says No and the Times, that three make-up artists at MAC, an Estée Lauder Companies brand, lost their jobs in a 2020 redundancy process after being told to reapply for their roles through a video interview run by HireVue and marked by an algorithm. City AM reports that they were made redundant partly as a result of the automated judgement. The women said no one could explain how they had been scored, and one said nobody watched the video. Estée Lauder settled their claims out of court; the amount was not disclosed. The company says staff were told in advance about the HireVue skills assessment, that the process was used in tandem with human decision-making, that facial recognition made up about 0.25% of the overall assessment and performance data and qualitative feedback most of it, and that any suggestion facial recognition played a decisive role is false. HireVue said its video-analysis component had been discontinued about two years earlier. How much the HireVue score weighed in each decision is not reported.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution disputed · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 22/10/2026
28 Sept 2023SlovakiaUnidentified voice-cloning tool
Two days before Slovakia's parliamentary election of 30 September 2023, during the pre-election moratorium, an audio file presented as a phone call between Progressive Slovakia leader Michal Šimečka and Denník N journalist Monika Tódová spread on Facebook, Telegram, TikTok and chain e-mails. In it, the two voices discuss rigging the election in the party's favour. The director of the Interior Ministry's Centre for Countering Hybrid Threats told AFP that the ministry's evaluation found several signs that the recording was created with AI synthetic-voice algorithms trained on real people's voices, and other analysts consulted by AFP said it was an AI-made fake. A former member of parliament shared it as authentic, calling Šimečka a traitor and fraudster. Šimečka called it fake. Tódová filed a criminal complaint for defamation; according to Denník N, police first dismissed it, a prosecutor ordered an investigation, and in 2024 an investigator suspended the case because no suspect could be identified.
Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 22/10/2026
17 Jan 2025 to 4 Nov 2025United StatesGemini and Sora (reported)
The Queens District Attorney charged a former candidate for New York City Council District 29 with forgery in June 2026, alleging that from January to November 2025 he posted AI-generated images, fake news articles and videos on his campaign's Facebook and Instagram accounts. Prosecutors say subpoena records and search warrants show he prompted an AI platform to face-swap himself into a photo shaking hands with former Council Member Robert Holden for a fake New York Post endorsement story, used Google Gemini to make a fake Amsterdam News article saying his opponent, Council Member Lynn Schulman, was questioned by police, and posted a Sora-generated newscast announcing that she had dropped out. They also allege AI videos of apparent police officers and children endorsing him. In October 2025 Holden's chief of staff told the Queens Daily Eagle the handshake image was fake and AI-generated, and Schulman said her opponent was lying about her and creating fake news. The accused said his accounts were hacked and later told the AP he would not confirm or deny making the posts.
Core concern Low reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources · Added 19/10/2026
10 Oct 2026 to 15 Oct 2026Event location unknownUnidentified image tool
Between 10 and 15 October 2026 a Swedish-language Facebook page published twelve posts about Mohamed Abdukardir Ali, a Left Party (V) member of the Riksdag, including claims that he had confessed to election fraud and that police had detained him in the middle of a press conference. The fact-checking site Källkritikbyrån reported on 16 October that the claims are false and the images AI-generated, and linked the page through a shared administrator account to BeeUp, a Vietnamese firm that presents itself as a viral marketing agency. SVT Verifierar reported on 17 October that the images claim he confesses to election fraud and has been arrested, and that comment after comment on Facebook reacted with demands such as 'Utvisa honom!' (deport him). The posts built on real reports of suspected election irregularities connected with his personal-vote campaign in Borlänge, which he denies. No source names the image tool, describes how the images were identified as AI-generated, or reports his response to the fabricated posts.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 18/10/2026
7 Feb 2026ThailandUnidentified Google image tool (reported)
AFP Fact Check reported on 9 February 2026 that an image showing Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul at a dinner table with South African businessman Benjamin Mauerberger and three women spread in a 7 February Facebook post, and in other Facebook and TikTok posts, on the eve of Thailand's 8 February general election, with captions suggesting the two men had long been in contact. A newsletter has accused Mauerberger of laundering money for scam networks, which he denies, and genuine photos of the two men leaked in December 2025 had already drawn questions from opposition lawmakers. AFP found visual irregularities and ran the image through Google's SynthID detector, which indicated with very high confidence that it was made with Google's AI tools. Anutin publicly denied the photo's authenticity on 7 February, saying it was an AI photo. Who made the image is not reported.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 18/10/2026
Oct 2026BrazilUnidentified image tool
A candidate in a selection process to accredit social workers and psychologists for the court district of Brasnorte, in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, was eliminated after the selection support commission found that the 3x4 identification photo she submitted had 'clear and unmistakable traces of generation and/or editing by Artificial Intelligence' and a digital watermark in one corner. The commission's statement of 8 October 2026, accepted by the court district and published in the electronic Justice Gazette on 13 October, treated the picture as a simulated image that did not meet the call's requirement of a recent, faithful facial photograph, and her qualification was annulled. A second candidate was eliminated in the same decision for a mould-stained, outdated photo, with no AI involved. The candidate is not named in the reports, and her response and the tool used are not reported.
AI relation unknown Low reported severity Internal Action
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 15/10/2026
Oct 2026United StatesUnidentified image tool
In October 2026 the San Dieguito Faculty Association, a California union representing district educators and staff that has endorsed candidate Amy Flicker for a San Dieguito Union High School District trustee seat, accused the campaign of her opponent, Cajon Valley Union School District superintendent David Ray Miyashiro, of using AI 'to generate deceptive, sexist imagery' in a campaign flyer. The flyer, as published by the Daily Mail, shows Flicker behind a table of baked goods labelled 'Non-profit volunteer' beside Miyashiro at a microphone labelled 'District superintendent', and carries the small-print disclosure 'Ad generated or substantially altered using artificial intelligence.' Flicker said that using AI to manipulate her likeness diminished her public service into a condescending stereotype. The campaign's response is not reported, and which parts of the image were generated or altered is not stated.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 14/10/2026
2024United StatesUnidentified voice-cloning tool (suspected)
While campaigning in 2024 for a Broward County court seat, Lauren Peffer, now a county judge, sought the endorsement of the South Florida Sun Sentinel editorial board. Asked to back her claim of an image crisis in Florida's judiciary, she cited a self-published book by a fired employee of the Ninth Judicial Circuit and supplied a recording purportedly of a phone call about the book between Chief Justice Carlos Muñiz, Justice Renatha Francis and the circuit's chief judge, Lisa Munyon. The Florida Judicial Qualifications Commission's notice of formal charges, filed in May 2025, said the recording was fabricated, likely using computer manipulation or generative AI, and that while the voices resembled those of the participants, the manner of speech, tone and much of the content were objectively unrealistic. The notice said she had shared it despite clear evidence of its inauthenticity and had perpetuated a false perception of illegal, unethical or immoral conduct by the justices, a chief judge and others in the judicial branch. Peffer apologised, said the content was created by a third party with whom she had no ties, and testified that she could not explain why she had thought it valid. According to Bloomberg Law, the Florida Supreme Court on 9 October 2026 suspended her for 30 days and fined her $10,000, saying her conduct undermined public confidence in the judiciary by implicating sitting justices; the two justices whose voices were faked recused. Who made the recording, and with what tool, is not reported.
Core concern Low reported severity Regulatory Action
AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution alleged · 6 sources · Added 12/10/2026