PSA: A fake video of a local mayor almost got me at a town hall meeting last month

I was at the Springville town hall meeting, just watching on my phone, when they showed a clip of the mayor saying something crazy about raising taxes. Everyone started booing, but something felt off. I paused it, looked close, and the way his mouth moved on the word 'triple' was just wrong, like a bad puppet. I checked the official feed and that clip was never part of his speech. It was a deep fake someone made to stir trouble. Now I check the source of any political clip before I even think about sharing it. Has anyone else caught a fake in what seemed like a normal local news stream?

3 comments

3 Comments

emma_garcia28d ago

Honestly, what gets me is how this stuff targets small towns now. We expect it in national races, but a local mayor? The tech is cheap enough that any angry person with a grudge can try to swing a zoning vote or a school board election. It makes you wonder how many boring local meetings have been disrupted by fakes that no one caught. Do you think the town should have a way to flag these clips right on the official stream?

amyh1228d ago

Zoning votes? That's a whole new level of scary. Someone could fake a clip of a council member saying they'll bulldoze a park to put in a parking lot. People would show up FURIOUS to the next meeting over something that never even happened. The official stream needs a big red warning button or something, for real.

matthewmiller28d ago

Scary stuff, @amyh12. I once got fooled by a fake clip of my own cousin... and I was at the birthday party where they claim he said it.