Last-48-hour hostile deepfake
4Likely4Critical16
A fabricated scandal drops too late for a correction to reach the same audience.
16automated residualNeeds reviewAbove working threshold (12)
Electoral synthetic media
Owner · Election authorities, platforms, campaigns
CapabilityAffordanceImpact domainHarm-adjacent
Statement (NASA form)
Given that candidates, parties, and platforms are already deploying or failing to contain deepfakes at campaign scale, and state law is lagging live ads, there is a possibility of voters treating synthetic audio or video as authentic political reality resulting in illegitimate election outcomes, or legitimate ones that a large public no longer accepts.
- Condition
- candidates, parties, and platforms are already deploying or failing to contain deepfakes at campaign scale, and state law is lagging live ads
- Departure
- voters treating synthetic audio or video as authentic political reality
- Impact
- illegitimate election outcomes, or legitimate ones that a large public no longer accepts
VC + institute corroboration
Experimental share of compiled public capital that names this risk. Not a certified residual.
$24Mexperimental share · $0k private / $24M institute · partial corroboration
- UK AISI · ~$18M of published budget mapped here
- CAISI · ~$3.0M of published budget mapped here
- SG AISI · ~$2.6M of published budget mapped here
4 public sources · OECD AIM · AIID / The Verge · AIID / NTV
Worst scenario
4×3
Likely × Major
Urgency
4
Expedite · This month
Inherent composite
20
Worst 16 + urgency
Residual composite
16
Need ≤ 12
The civic risk is not only a hostile deepfake in the last 48 hours. It is also the authorised clone: a candidate who campaigns as a video that is not them, at a scale no human can audit. Platforms have already had to apologise to governments.
Pathway fragment
Simple upstream → via → downstream notes. Not a causal graph. Experimental.
Upstream
- Cheap synthetic video and voice
- Paid political reach
- Low disclosure
Via
- Targeted clone of a candidate or official
- Audience treats it as real
Downstream
- Shifted vote or protest
- Collapsed trust in civic media
Assumptions · EU labels are treated as landed; US and most other jurisdictions are not.
Human calibration
Override is stored on this desk only. It does not make the score official.
Failure scenarios
Each scenario has its own likelihood and consequence. The risk takes the most severe cell. Residual applies implemented mitigations to every scenario, then re-ranks.
Authorised clones become the campaign
4Likely3Major12
Voters cannot tell which appearances were the candidate. Accountability dissolves.
A real result is rejected as fake
3Probable5Catastrophic15
After enough synthesis, authentic footage of a concession or a count is treated as another deepfake.
Examples
Meta’s apology to India
Meta apologised to the Indian government over deepfake content and platform-operation failures during a live democratic cycle.
Self-deepfakes as campaign infrastructure
Candidates have used audio and video clones of themselves to reach voters who did not know they were talking to a synthesis.
State law behind the ad buy
US state deepfake laws are already lagging AI political advertising that is running in the same cycle.
Contributing signals
X posts on the desk that evidence this risk. A signal can contribute to more than one risk.
Meta apology to India over deepfake and operations failures.
AffordanceImpact domainBoth
State deepfake laws lagging live AI political ads.
AffordanceImpact domainBoth
Candidates deploying self-deepfakes at electoral scale.
AffordanceImpact domainBoth
Deepfake of India’s home minister ran as a paid Facebook ad.
AffordanceImpact domainBoth
Anthropic watermarks and C2PA under Article 50.
CapabilityDomain knowledgeAffordanceImpact domainBoth
Mitigations
Residual assumes only items marked in place. Highlighted rows are the remaining work needed to reach a composite of 12.
In progressPlatforms and broadcasters
Provenance credentials on political audio and video
C2PA-style signing from camera to broadcast, with a visible break when the chain is missing.
Platforms and broadcasters · expedited 6 weeks · normal 5 months · −1 L · −0 C · −0 U
ProposedOn the pathElection lawmakers
Synthetic-media quiet period before ballots
Ban undisclosed synthetic political content in a defined pre-election window, with real penalties.
Election lawmakers · expedited 2 months · normal 8 months · −1 L · −1 C · −1 U
In placeCampaigns and platforms
Mandatory, durable disclosure on authorised clones
If a campaign uses a clone, every impression carries a disclosure the platform cannot crop away.
Campaigns and platforms · expedited 2 weeks · normal 2 months · −0 L · −1 C · −0 U