Spanish Opposition's Deepfake Ad Targeting Prime Minister's Wife Draws Outrage Ahead of Election

A political advert from Spain's main opposition party that relied on deepfake technology to imitate the prime minister's wife has caused an uproar and opened a wider discussion about artificial intelligence, as the sharply divided country heads toward general elections next month.

The conservative People's Party (PP) released the video this week on its social media channels. It used AI to manipulate the likenesses of several people connected to Pedro Sánchez's Socialist party, and seemed to show them confessing to things such as soliciting prostitutes and accepting kickbacks.

In one segment, an AI-generated Begoña Gómez, Sánchez's wife, talks about getting a university post because of her husband's job. A deepfake of former Socialist prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero speaks of hiding jewellery in a safe. Both references point to ongoing investigations, and both Gómez and Zapatero have denied wrongdoing.

By Friday the video had gathered nearly 2m views, and the Socialists responded quickly. Digital transformation minister Óscar López told broadcaster TVE: "It's telling people a colossal lie, and for a party to do it on its official accounts seems intolerable to me." He noted that the AI label appeared at the bottom of the clip in tiny, nearly transparent text, and warned that people unfamiliar with AI could easily mistake it for reality.

Also on Friday, Leire Díez, a former Socialist party member whose likeness was used, filed a court complaint against the PP and asked that the advert be removed immediately. She reportedly accused the party of defamation and digital identity theft, since the video used her image to allude to accusations that she worked to undermine the judiciary and law enforcement to benefit the Socialists.

Legal opinion appears to favour the PP. Most of the nine legal experts consulted by El País agreed the video was not illegal, because it was labelled as AI-generated and had a satirical tone. Íñigo Navarro, a former dean of the law faculty at Madrid's Comillas Pontifical University, said that given the context, everyone knows those people did not say those things. Juan Antonio Lascuraín, a criminal law professor at the Autonomous University of Madrid, stressed that legality is separate from whether the video is appropriate or ethically and politically correct.

José Javier Olivas, an associate professor at Spain's National University for Distance Education who studies populism, conspiracy theories and AI biases, called it regrettable that the official account of a party claiming it wants to revitalise democracy would use deepfakes. He said both mainstream parties have been stirring emotions and attacking their rivals' morality, but that this video crossed a "red line." Putting words in other people's mouths, he said, qualifies as disinformation.

The issue is also emerging in the United States ahead of next month's midterm elections. A recent report by a Wesleyan University research group identified more than 200 ads using AI, most of them tied to Republicans. Erika Franklin Fowler, co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project, said less than $50,000 in spending on AI-generated ads was found in the 2024 cycle, and that much of the current use carries no disclaimer.

The PP has dismissed the criticism. Party figure Borja Sémper said there would be a problem only if there had been malicious intent to make people believe the characters were real, but that everyone can see the video uses digital tools to highlight Socialist hypocrisy. Most polls suggest the PP will win the 29 November election but will need support from the far-right Vox party to form a government.