For the purpose of this "major deepfake scandal" is defined as a deepfake (1) created with the apparent aim of influencing the election, (2) that reaches at least 100k voters, (3) and is conclusively debunked, but which many people nonetheless believe, as reported by mainstream news media
1,000
3.00I think this qualifies. https://www.wired.com/story/russian-propaganda-unit-storm-1516-false-tim-walz-sexual-abuse-claims/
Millions of views, conclusively debunked, some Trump supporters still believe it.
@MugaSofer I don't think so. "Many" people need to believe it, not just "some" ("some" people believe a vast number of things like this), and I'm skeptical this should count as "a deepfake." It was a wider campaign where deepfakes were just one component. I think "a deepfake" would be more like a specific fake video of Trump or Harris, where that video itself is the scandal (e.g., many people believe they made certain statements).
@mods Creator appears to be inactive. As noted above, I think this should pretty clearly resolve YES, but there's some debate. Either way it should probably resolve.
I'm kinda on the fence on whether this is major enough to count.
For the other mods who want to look at it, here is the deepfake video in question:
https://x.com/MattMetro/status/1846582216043974773
And it got re-uploaded by different twitter accounts e.g.
https://x.com/MatthewLovesUSA/status/1846726206650974445
https://x.com/Shayan86/status/1846715626049470958 (this one got over 1 Million views and over 10k likes)
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edit: leaning towards yes, because the story hits all three points of the description. Doesn't matter that the deepfake is weak as fuck, there were enough dumb-asses who believed it.
@Agh I was originally going to say it was not influential enough to qualify for the "many" thing, but after searching around a bit, I changed my mind. This entire article from Washington Post seems to be something I would weight much higher than the Wired one posted above:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2024/10/21/tim-walz-matthew-metro-video/
Many Trump supporters with small followings promoted the post as a bombshell revelation about the conduct of Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate toward students when he was a teacher, one made credible because there was seemingly a named accuser who had attended a school where Walz taught.
It specifically says "Many". And the article really does in-depth on the entire thing from every angle. I think it meets all the criteria from the description:
Definitely intended to influence the election
Had over 5 million views across various platforms, surely 100k of them were voters
The debunking is very conclusive
Enough people believed it that the Washington Post wrote "Many" when talking about how many people thought it was a bombshell revelation
In the absence of the creator of the question, it seems like this fits everything described.
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...I would never have described this as a "major deepfake scandal" in the way the question title does. But it matches the criteria exactly. I don't see how we can go against that.
As a point of comparison, the deep fake audio robocalls recently spoofing Biden in advance of the NH primaries are estimated to have reached up to 25k voters.
Note the NH AG has identified at least 2 voter-suppression suspects in TX (Life Corporation and Walter Monk)
What are you counting as a deepfake here, is it any AI assisted fake of a major person? For example, would that AI Pope picture of him in the puffy coat count as a deepfake, or are you more specifically referring to the instances of putting one persons face/voice onto a scene acted out by other people?
(Aforementioned drippy pope)