I was the victim of an AI deepfake yet the law was unable to protect me
Freeman was previously a minister in the Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology (Alamy)
4 min read
We've allowed the growth of a dangerous digital space where pretty much anything goes.
Earlier this month, an AI-generated deepfake video appeared online showing a convincing replica of me announcing my “defection” from the Conservative Party to Reform. Thousands of constituents saw it, tens of thousands more nationally, and it led to an inevitable storm of confusion, denial and online abuse.
I immediately issued a statement explaining it was a fake. Yet even that sparked more questions: “Was that statement also fake?” When I asked Meta to remove the video, I was told it didn’t breach their publishing guidelines.
I still don’t know whether it was the work of a local prankster or part of a more organised campaign of disinformation by a political opponent. What’s clear is that it could have been either, because online, no one is truly accountable. We’ve allowed a digital space where almost anything goes, and where anonymity and fake news too often replace authentic accountability.
AI, like all transformative technologies, can be a huge force for good or ill.
It’s helping biomedical scientists discover cures for diseases once thought untreatable. It can also strengthen our public services and democracy. As a new MP in 2010, I embraced digital democracy to reach constituents across my large rural seat: hosting Facebook Live sessions, publishing e-bulletins and using social media to stay accountable and visible.
At its heart, democracy is personal. People vote for people — not machines. Yes, we belong to parties, but those are supposed to be loose affiliations of philosophically aligned MPs to enable stable and effective governments. Remember those days?
The genius of our constituency system lies in human connection: people electing someone they know, who they can meet, question and hold to account. This is repeated in Parliament as ministers are held to account at the despatch box by their peers.
The explosion of AI-driven social media has created an online public realm where fake news, manipulated content and deliberate misinformation spread unchecked.
Imagine a Parliament where anyone could speak anonymously, make any claim without consequence and where attention went only to the most sensational, regardless of truth. That would not be a democracy worthy of the name. Yet that is what we have, in effect, created online.
Tackling this is not about curbing satire or free speech, which remain vital pillars of our democracy, but about restoring accountability.
Platforms such as X and Facebook have become global amplifiers of false or incendiary material, blurring the line between news and entertainment and opening our democracy up to malign influence and disruption on an industrial scale. It’s no coincidence that political disruption is a major pillar of the Russian cyber war on the West. If we care about the survival of parliamentary democracy, we need to defend and strengthen it.
As with the wider economy, the UK has a major leadership role to play in using our regulatory freedom to show how we can combine a vibrant AI sector as a force for good, without allowing its dangerous applications to flourish. That's why, as the minister for AI in 2022, I agreed with the artists, musicians, and performers that we cannot sacrifice our creative industries in the rush to secure AI investment. Especially when it comes to protecting someone’s identity.
That principle should apply to all of us. Impersonating a police officer is rightly a disproportionately severe criminal offence because society depends on being able to trust that those in uniform truly represent the law. Equally, having trust in what our elected representatives say is key to democratic integrity.
And we do have laws intended to protect us from false communications and misrepresentation. Lots of them. But the police tell me that whilst they and the Crown Prosecution Service would like to prosecute identity theft, there’s a gap in the law. So if major platforms like Meta and X fail to enforce these standards, then Parliament will have to intervene. Protecting creative expression and protecting democracy are not separate challenges — they are two sides of the same coin.
If we fail to tackle identity fraud properly and take a libertarian “anything goes” approach to anonymity and identity online, we will have only ourselves to blame when our vibrant creative arts, media and parliamentary democracy all become as hollowed-out, unaccountable and dystopian as TikTok.
If we value it, we need to defend it.
George Freeman is Conservative MP for Mid Norfolk and a member of the Science & Technology Select Committee.
