Workshop Proceedings of the 18th International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media
Workshop: Digital State Sponsored Disinformation and Propaganda: Challenges and Opportunities
DOI: 10.36190/2024.67Two days before Slovakia's 2023 election, a fake recording of a prominent candidate confessing to election rigging went viral, causing public outrage. As the media could not properly debunk the video due to a moratorium on election coverage, it reached substantial engagement on social networks. This incident, arguably the first direct deepfake interference with an election, highlights the dangers of the recent advancements in image, video, and audio deepfake creation tools. Slovakia's case shows that, despite the severity of these threats, current detection methods are ineffective for non-English content, and the policies of social media platforms are inadequate. This extended abstract details the case and offers four actionable insights for the research community, legal practice, and industry stakeholders.