Associated Incidents
Former Argentine President and right-wing PRO party leader Mauricio Macri has denounced a deepfake artificial intelligence video that spread on social media, which falsely depicted him encouraging the public to vote for presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni in the Buenos Aires City legislative elections.
Macri, who was president of Argentina from 2015 to 2019, took to his own social media channels to condemn the video, calling the matter "an attempt at electoral fraud".
"Hours before the election, a crude video generated with artificial intelligence was published on X," he said in the statement. "In [the video], a credible recreation of me is shown making statements that I never made about our list."
Macri said the move was aimed at "confusing the electorate," and added that "those who published the video are people from the closest circle of *La Libertad Avanza *(LLA)."
In the fake video, an AI-generated version of Macri can be heard saying he has decided to remove PRO city lawmaker candidate Silvia Lospennato from the election in order to "stop Kirchnerism from winning" in the election. Another AI video shows a fake Lospennato saying she has decided to step down and calling to vote for Adorni, "Milei's candidate."
Lospennato said in an X post that LLA had "crossed all the boundaries" and accused them of "sharing a fake artificial intelligence-generated video from their largest accounts to confuse voters," adding that this is "an electoral crime."
"Liars and those who do not respect the rules are beaten with votes and decency," she said. Lospennato, Macri and other PRO members also condemned the videos in a press conference on Sunday morning.
After the videos went viral, the General Prosecutors' Office sent a request to the X offices in San Francisco to "immediately eliminate" the fake Macri video on the grounds that it "contains false information with direct impact on the electoral process" in Buenos Aires, "violating the current norms and the citizens' right to cast a conscious vote."
The request mentioned a series of accounts that spread the AI-generated videos. They include major troll accounts known for backing Milei and LLA, including "Gordo Dan," an account managed by streamer Daniel Parisini, who is part of the government's communications team, as well as "Milei Emperador," an account widely attributed to influential presidential advisor Santiago Caputo.
The General Prosecutors office also requested X to preserve IP addresses and any information that might be useful for potential future judicial complaints.
After casting his vote on Sunday morning, Milei replied to Macri's accusations. "Macri has become a whiner, he's made of glass. Pure glass," he said. "They're playing victim."
In the same line, Adorni questioned PRO for attributing the viralization of the videos to LLA. "There's plenty of videos with stupid things, fake news and AI. There were also videos of other parties, including me," he said. "Of course, it's preferable for this not to happen, but when it happens it's regrettable that they accuse another party of having promoted it."