A group of activists has just uploaded an ad that uses a deepfake of Mark Zuckerberg. They are trying to challenge Democratic politicians to pass two antitrust bills before the United States Congress falls under Republican control.
The deepfake as a political tool? It is in any case the weapon used by the group Demand Progress Action which tries to convince the American senators to vote for an antitrust law. The group posted a two-minute ad where Mark Zuckerberg thanks Congress for their ineffectiveness in holding the GAFAs to account. An abbreviated 30-second version will also be broadcast on television.
Of course, the video is faked and uses artificial intelligence to replace an actor’s face and voice with those of Meta’s CEO. The activists more specifically challenge two Democratic political figures: Chuck Schumer, Senate Majority Leader, and Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Two bills that will be rejected by the Republican majority
Activists used Mark Zuckerberg’s face in retaliation for a faked video where Nancy Pelosi seemed to struggle to articulate, which went viral on social media in 2019. Facebook then refused to take it down. This ad hopes to inspire the two politicians to expedite the vote on two antitrust bills in Congress, theAmerican Innovation and Choice Online Act and theOpen App Markets Act. The Democrats are running out of time because in January Congress will pass to a Republican majority, which has already indicated that they do not intend to approve these bills.
Selon Bloomberg, big tech companies have spent more than $120 million to counter these bills. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, notably donated $4 million to the American Edge Project, a lobbying company, in order to influence the vote of senators.
