Deepfake video targeting Ireland’s president-elect sparks election integrity concerns

Irish regulators and experts on Sunday raised alarm over a highly realistic AI-generated video falsely showing Catherine Connolly announcing her withdrawal from the presidential race, warning that such deepfakes pose a growing threat to democracy.

The fake clip, which circulated on social media during the final TV debate, mimicked an RTE News broadcast and was convincing enough to deceive even experts in artificial intelligence.

Aidan O'Brien of the European Digital Media Observatory at Dublin City University described it as "an exceptionally good piece of manipulated media," combining authentic and AI-generated footage.

"It was of far superior quality than any other deepfake we saw during this election," he said, noting that accurate pronunciation of Irish names suggested local knowledge.

Barry Scannell, AI law and policy lead at William Fry and a member of Ireland's Artificial Intelligence Advisory Council, said he initially believed the video was real.

"I actually went on the RTE website to verify it," he said, calling the incident "a wake-up call" about the sophistication of AI tools.

Authorities reacted swiftly. Ireland's Electoral Commission escalated the issue to social media platforms, and Meta removed the video within hours for violating its impersonation policy. However, it continued circulating on US social media company X, where the platform said it would label the content as "manipulated media."

O'Brien said the rapid response was "surprisingly effective," but warned that once such videos spread, "you'll never really be able to pull them back out."