A 3 minute deepfake of my mayor made me rethink blocking people

Ngl, I used to think deepfakes were just for celebs and weird political memes. Then last week my neighbor in Portland showed me a clip of our mayor supposedly accepting a bribe, and I almost shared it before checking. Turns out it was made with a free tool and 20 voice samples from city council meetings, that specific detail was what convinced me. Someone on Reddit pointed out the mayor's left hand never moved during the whole speech, and that tiny tell unraveled everything for me. Now I watch for hand motion, eye blinks, and weird audio lag before I believe any local politician video. Has anyone else caught a local deepfake that got traction in their town before it was exposed?

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the_susan1mo ago

My cousin sent me a video of our school board member last month saying he wanted to cut the arts budget. I almost went off on Facebook about it. Then my wife noticed the guy's tie was on the wrong side the whole clip. Somebody had flipped the video and used AI for the voice. I used to roll my eyes at deepfake warnings, figured it was just a big city problem for famous people. Now I check every clip twice before I even think about hitting share.

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