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PA Media<\/p>\nPA Media<\/p>\n
Irish presidential candidate Catherine Connolly has lodged a formal complaint with the Electoral Commission over a “malicious deep-fake” AI video.<\/p>\n
The video appeared online on Tuesday night and showed an AI version of Connolly appearing to announce her withdrawal from Friday’s election.<\/p>\n
Connolly called the video a “disgraceful attempt to mislead voters and undermine our democracy”. <\/p>\n
In a statement, the independent TD (member of the Irish parliament) said she was “absolutely” still a candidate to become the 10th president of Ireland. <\/p>\n
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Facebook<\/p>\n
The video appeared online on Tuesday night and mimicked an RT\u00c9 news report <\/p>\n
“It is a disgraceful attempt to mislead voters and undermine our democracy”, she said. <\/p>\n
“I will not be distracted. I will continue my campaign in every county, meeting people and making the case for a hopeful, inclusive presidency.”<\/p>\n
She added: “If you see this video, do not share it – report it, the surest reply to lies is to vote.” <\/p>\n
Connolly’s campaign team said they have reported the video to the social media platforms it appeared on. <\/p>\n
They have requested it be removed immediately and clearly listed as fake. <\/p>\n
‘Miniscule clues’ give away video’s AI origins<\/p>\n
Alan Smeaton, emeritus professor of computing at Dublin City University and a member of the Irish government’s AI Advisory Council, told BBC Verify there were some “minuscule clues” that gave the video away. <\/p>\n
“There are slight over-pronunciations in the lips and mouths by both the Catherine Connolly and the RT\u00c9 reporter representations.<\/p>\n
“There is a slight aura around the news reporter in the third shot, probably because the background is dynamic,” he added. <\/p>\n
“The final sentence of the clip, that the election is cancelled and Heather Humphries wins by default, should raise a red flag for most people given the vast majority know Jim Gavin withdrew from canvassing a couple of weeks ago but his name will still be on the ballot paper.” <\/p>\n
He said, “social media platforms have a lot to answer for”. <\/p>\n
“The whack-a-mole approach of taking such videos down after an hour, a day, a week or whatever time, is not working.”<\/p>\n
Who is Catherine Connolly? <\/p>\n
Connolly has been an independent TD for the Galway West constituency since 2016.<\/p>\n
She previously served as deputy speaker in the D\u00e1il (Irish parliament) in Dublin.<\/p>\n
A former member of the Irish Labour Party, she quit after not being allowed to run alongside Michael D Higgins in the 2007 general election.<\/p>\n
Connolly has been backed in her Irish presidential bid by several left-leaning parties and a number of independents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PA Media Irish presidential candidate Catherine Connolly has lodged a formal complaint with the Electoral Commission over a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244717,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,181,507,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-244716","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}