Deepfake Video Sparks Outrage in Spain Ahead of Election as Opposition Ad Draws Legal Challenge
Spain holds a general election next month, and a campaign video from the country's main opposition party has already caused an uproar. The deepfake video, made with artificial intelligence, manipulated the likenesses of people linked to Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez's Socialist party and appeared to show them admitting to wrongdoing. In the deeply polarised country, the advert has set off a wider debate about AI and disinformation.
Launched this week across the social media channels of the conservative People's Party (PP), the video used AI to manipulate the likenesses of various figures and appeared to show them admitting to acts such as soliciting prostitutes and taking kickbacks.
An AI-generated version of Sánchez's wife, Begoña Gómez, for example, speaks about receiving a university post thanks to her husband's job, while a deepfake of former Socialist president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero talks about hiding jewellery in a safe. Both lines nod to ongoing investigations in which Gómez and Zapatero have denied any wrongdoing.
The Socialist party responded swiftly. By Friday the video had racked up nearly two million views. “It's telling people a colossal lie, and for a party to do it on its official accounts seems intolerable to me,” Óscar López, Spain's digital transformation minister, told the broadcaster TVE on Friday.
The video did carry a note at the bottom — in tiny, nearly transparent font — saying it had been created with AI. But López pointed to the wider risk: “It's very easy for anyone who isn't used to AI to confuse that video with reality. And call me crazy, but that seems extremely serious to me.”
On Friday, one of the people whose likeness was used filed a legal challenge against the PP, demanding the party immediately take down the advert. In a court complaint, Leire Díez, a former Socialist party member, accused the PP of defamation and digital identity theft, after the video used her likeness to hint at accusations that she worked to undermine judicial and law enforcement bodies to help the Socialists.
The legal picture is not one-sided, however. A majority of the nine legal experts consulted by the newspaper El País concluded that what the PP did was not illegal, given that the video was labelled as AI-generated and its overall tone was one of political satire. “Given the context, everyone knows those people didn't say those things,” Íñigo Navarro, a former dean of the law faculty at Madrid's Comillas Pontifical University, told the paper.
But legality is only one aspect, said Juan Antonio Lascuraín, a professor of criminal law at the Autonomous University of Madrid: “It's quite another matter to ask whether it's appropriate, exemplary or ethically and politically correct.”
Many have placed the video in the wider context of efforts by officials around the world to crack down on disinformation. José Javier Olivas, an associate professor at Spain's National University for Distance Education who researches populism, conspiracy theories and AI biases, said: “It's truly regrettable that the official account of a party that claims to want to govern and revitalise democracy is using AI-generated deepfakes in its campaign.” He noted that both mainstream parties have sought to rally voters by stoking emotions and attacking their rivals' morality, but called the video a “red line” in how campaigns normally unfold. “You're using the images of other people, putting words in their mouths that they're not saying — this qualifies as disinformation,” he said.
The use of AI in political advertising has also become a talking point in the United States ahead of next month's midterm elections. A recent report by a research group based at Wesleyan University in Connecticut identified more than 200 such ads, the vast majority tied to the Republicans. Erika Franklin Fowler, a co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project, said: “AI is making its way into the 2026 midterms in a big way this year. For comparison, we identified less than $50,000 in spending on AI-generated ads in the 2024 cycle. Much of the AI use is not disclosed through any type of disclaimer.”
In Spain, the PP has brushed off the criticism. “If there had been malicious intent to make people believe that the characters who appear there are real, then we'd have a problem,” the party's Borja Sémper told reporters. “But everyone can see that this is a way of using digital tools to highlight the hypocrisy in which the Socialist party operates.”
Most polls suggest the PP will win the 29 November general election, though the question of forming a government remains open. Before then, the deepfake row has raised a new question for Spanish campaigning: in the age of AI, exactly where is the line between satire and disinformation — and who will police it?
