The incident was cruel and reckless. It also exposed a problem larger than one video or one party.<\/p>\n
Israel is entering its first election since the October 7 massacre amid social tension. Artificial intelligence now allows almost anyone to create convincing images, voices, and videos of events that never occurred.<\/p>\n
The combination is dangerous.<\/p>\n
The Central Elections<\/a> Committee has taken a first step. Temporary regulations issued by committee chairman Justice<\/a> Noam Sohlberg require labels on campaign that has been material digitally created or substantially altered in ways that could be mistaken for authentic content.<\/p>\n Disclosures must be prominent. Labels must remain visible throughout relevant video footage, while audio material must carry a warning at the beginning and end. Failure to disclose may be considered a violation of the law.<\/p>\n These rules are welcome, but they are only a beginning.<\/p>\n Political parties are responsible for misinformation<\/p>\n A label can help voters understand what they see. It cannot prevent misleading content from spreading across Telegram, TikTok, X\/Twitter, Instagram, and WhatsApp before journalists or regulators can respond. Nor does it resolve responsibility when deceptive material appears through unofficial accounts, surrogates, anonymous pages, or supposedly independent organizations.<\/p>\n Political parties must be accountable for material on official channels and coordinated content distributed on their behalf. A campaign should not benefit from a fabricated video and then evade responsibility by blaming supporters or unaffiliated accounts.<\/p>\n The Central Elections Committee must establish a fast, transparent process for complaints involving synthetic media.<\/p>\n Election misinformation moves at digital speed. A ruling delivered weeks after a fabricated recording reaches hundreds of thousands of voters is meaningless.<\/p>\n Penalties must matter. If the only consequence is adding a label or removing a post after it goes viral, campaigns may decide that breaking the rules is worth the advantage.<\/p>\n Social media companies also have a role. They should not judge political arguments or censor lawful speech. But when clear evidence shows that a realistic video falsely portrays a candidate, they must respond swiftly.<\/p>\n These protections require care. Political satire, parody, and artistic expression are legitimate parts of democratic debate. Israelis have always used humor, impersonation, and exaggeration to criticize their leaders. Regulation should not outlaw jokes or protect politicians from embarrassment.<\/p>\n Comedy, caricature, or misinformation<\/p>\n The redline should be deception.<\/p>\n An absurd caricature is not the same as a fabricated recording intended to convince voters that a candidate said something he never said. A comic imitation is not the same as a realistic video manufactured to provoke anger, panic, or violence.<\/p>\n The threat extends beyond domestic campaigning.<\/p>\n President Isaac Herzog has warned that hostile actors inside and outside Israel are seeking to undermine the election and deepen the country\u2019s internal divisions. A State Comptroller\u2019s Office report found that, as of March 2026, Israel lacked a comprehensive national policy and a designated authority to coordinate the response to foreign digital influence campaigns.<\/p>\n Senior Israeli security officials have told The Jerusalem Post that Turkey is attempting to influence the election through social-media activity. They did not identify the accounts involved or say whether the operation was directed by the Turkish government but placed Turkey alongside Iran among the foreign actors suspected of exploiting divisions within Israeli society.<\/p>\n Labeling rules aimed at Israeli parties will not stop foreign governments, anonymous networks, or automated accounts.<\/p>\n Israel needs a coordinated national mechanism to identify foreign influence operations, inform the public, and respond without becoming a partisan instrument.<\/p>\n Every political camp may be tempted to use AI when it offers an advantage. That is why the rules must apply equally to everyone: coalition and opposition, Right and Left, and Jewish and Arab parties alike.<\/p>\n Israelis should choose their leaders based on competing ideas, records, policies, and visions for the country. Political campaigns will always involve spin, selective presentation, and harsh attacks. That is politics.<\/p>\n But democracy depends on a shared factual world.<\/p>\n Citizens must remain free to choose between competing versions of Israel\u2019s future. They cannot be expected to choose between competing versions of reality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israel\u2019s election campaign has begun, but it has offered a preview of what lies ahead. An AI-generated Likud…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":562406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[345,343,344,4410,85,46,74468,58195,116021,70668,14406,8122,2460,125],"class_list":["post-568196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-elections","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-israel-elections","tag-israel-elections-2026","tag-israeli-election","tag-israeli-knesset","tag-knesset","tag-misinformation","tag-social-media","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=568196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/562406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}An illustration of an Israeli voting at the ballot box. (credit: Niyazz\/Shutterstock)<\/p>\n