With the upcoming Turkish presidential election, a serious accusation has been made against the current government. Tuncay Özkan, the chairman of the opposition party, alleged that the government will produce false deepfake propaganda on DarkWeb to sway the outcome of the elections, which is a deeply concerning matter. According to Özkan, the payment for such manipulation was made with Bitcoin (BTC). The claim is further augmented by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s recent AI-generated video that made Kilicdaroglu look like he was praising the PKK.

In this light, AI experts have stated their concerns about the possible implications of deepfake propaganda in the election. Henry Ajder, a deepfake specialist, opined about the potentially vast reach of sophisticated, human-sounding speech, should the videos go viral on a large scale. Also, the presence of various online tools that certify the authenticity of a given fake content, as well as the risk of schematically labeling them as ‘fakes’ whenever convenient, must also be taken into account.

Considering that this is one of the first major elections in the world to deal with such advanced AI technology, the international community should take these accusations with utmost seriousness. As the use of deepfake propaganda could have significant effects on the election result, an effort should be made to ensure it does not take place in the near future.



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