PP deepfake ad hits a red line

Spain’s main opposition party has triggered a legal and political backlash after publishing an election advert that used AI-generated likenesses of people linked to prime minister Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist party and made them appear to admit wrongdoing.

The video was posted through the official social media channels of the conservative People’s party, or PP. Among the figures depicted were Sánchez’s wife, Begoña Gómez, and former Socialist prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. The fabricated lines referred to separate investigations in which Gómez and Zapatero have denied wrongdoing.

That matters beyond the usual campaign bile because this was not a stray meme from an activist account. It was an official party ad, carrying manipulated identities into an election campaign already defined by moral accusation and institutional distrust.

The Socialist party condemned the video. Óscar López, Spain’s digital transformation minister, told TVE that the advert was telling “a colossal lie” and argued that many viewers could mistake it for reality. The disclaimer, according to The Guardian, appeared in tiny, faint text at the bottom of the clip.

One of the people portrayed, former Socialist party member Leire Díez, filed a legal challenge seeking the advert’s removal. The Guardian reported that her complaint accuses the PP of defamation and digital identity theft after the video used her likeness to suggest she had worked to interfere with judicial and law-enforcement bodies for the party’s benefit.

Whether that challenge succeeds is less clear. The Guardian said a majority of nine legal experts consulted by El País did not consider the video illegal, largely because it was labelled as AI-generated and presented in a satirical register. That is a narrow answer to a broader problem. Election law can permit conduct that still lowers the evidential floor of a campaign.

The PP has defended the advert. Party spokesperson Borja Sémper said there would only be a problem if there had been an intent to make viewers believe the characters were real, and described the video as a digital way to expose Socialist hypocrisy.

Spain votes on 29 November, with most polls suggesting the PP will finish first but may need Vox to govern. The dispute over one advert does not settle that contest. It does clarify something else: one of the country’s largest parties has decided that synthetic political speech is now an acceptable campaign tool, provided the disclaimer is hard to miss only if you go looking for it.