Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting has become the latest top Labour figure to be subject to a deepfake video amid the general election campaign.
Analysis from the Evening Standard has shown that a widely circulated video of Streeting appearing to insult Diane Abbott on an episode of BBC Politics Live is a fake.
The clip shows a social media post from Abbott on screen, over which a man’s voice – implied to be Streeting – can be heard saying the words ‘silly woman’.
While Streeting did appear on the June 3 edition of the show, those two words were not said in the actual recording, as the Evening Standard evidenced from iPlayer.
Streeting said: “A fake video is circulating from Politics Live today. It contains words I did not use.
“People can check the original footage on iPlayer, but so far it has only fooled the gullible.”
READ MORE: UK general election poll tracker: Daily roundup on how polls look for Labour
It comes following another deepfake video of NEC member and North Durham candidate Luke Akehurst was shared on X (formerly Twitter).
In the video, he appears to say he is “just going to walk in and win the seat” and mock residents in the constituency as “thick Geordie c***s.”
However, the video has been widely flagged as a fake, with one community note pointing out it is ‘evidently’ digitally altered as evidenced by him wearing a remembrance poppy – making the date of the supposed comments inconsistent.
Experts have warned about the potential impact AI deepfakes could have on the general election.
Keir Starmer was last year the victim of a deepfake at Labour Party Conference, with a fake audio clip appearing to show him yelling profanely at staff members.
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