“Call for action on deepfakes as fears grow among MPs over election threat”. The Guardian reported on 22 January that 70% of MPs are concerned that “deepfakes and AI-generated content” will “undermine the integrity of the next general election.”
Seriously? When misrepresentation is the go-to tool of the Tory cabinet? When only four days prior, prime minister Rishi Sunak was rebuked by the UK’s statistics watchdog over his misleading claims on asylum? And in fact the whole farrago denying the human rights of asylum seekers fleeing wars is just a bunch of misleading, electioneering, dog-whistle politicking?
And this is supposed to be new? Forty years ago, when the Socialist Party forerunner, the Militant, led Liverpool council to take a fighting stance on housing, rents and jobs, misrepresentation poured daily from every capitalist newspaper, including the Guardian, every capitalist TV channel, the Tories, Liberals and the leadership of the Labour Party, and even the Liverpool Catholic church.
Nowhere were the genuine facts of the battle outlined except in the Militant newspaper (now the Socialist) – and in the pubs and coffee shops, the trade union meetings, and anywhere that ordinary people gathered. Our candidates won overwhelming electoral support, despite the ‘deepfakes’ of the day, forced concessions from the government, and improved the lives of ordinary working people in Liverpool to this day.
Look at the Labour Party leadership today and the chronic misrepresentation it poured down on former leader Jeremy Corbyn, who spent his entire life marching against racism and fascism on the streets and found himself accused of being an antisemite, which again was repeated by the capitalist media almost daily.
But who believes these daily deepfakes from ‘leaders’ who refuse to stand against genocide? Just 6% of voters, according to one YouGov poll from 2022, the rest believing the government acts according to the wishes of party donors, business groups and corporations, newspapers and the media, and so forth.
No, people are not fooled.
Pete Mason, Newham and East London Socialist Party
