Anonymous social media pages are using AI-generated images and videos to mock political rivals as Malta’s electoral campaign moves online.
While Malta’s politicians grind through the electoral campaign, rushing from one party event to the next, a parallel campaign has emerged across Facebook and TikTok accounts, seemingly with the purpose of pushing political talking points and trolling their adversaries.
In recent weeks several newly-created troll accounts have cropped up, with others that have existed for several years also ramping up their activity as the election date approaches.
Many of the posts go beyond the crude trolling techniques witnessed in previous campaigns, fully embracing AI to create ‘slopaganda,’ low-quality AI-generated posts intended to influence people’s political views.
Slopaganda has become an increasingly widespread tool in political circles, not just at election time, as the several AI-generated images casting US President Donald Trump as a Pope, Jedi or Christ-like figure attest.
Unlike traditional AI deepfakes, which are often designed to deceive people into believing something untrue, this sort of slopaganda makes no bones of the fact that it is not real.
Malta’s ongoing electoral campaign shows a similar trend, with AI mostly used to troll and mock political adversaries.
Although several of these pages appear to echo one another, adopting similar attack lines against their opponents and promoting the same political talking points, there is little to suggest that they are centrally controlled or directly connected to one another.
Videos mock electoral pledges
Partit Nazzjonalista (PN) leader Alex Borg has been a particularly frequent target so far in the campaign.
One Facebook and TikTok page, named ‘Diary of a Ġaħan’, appears to be especially keen on this technique, using AI videos as an almost real-time reaction to Borg’s electoral pledges.
Tuesday’s announcement that a PN government would build a fuel bunkering hub in Hurd’s Bank, was greeted with a video of a forlorn-looking Borg standing beside a petrol pump on a barren floating island in the open sea.
The page’s administrators were just as inspired by a pledge, made a day earlier, to create a network of solar panels across Malta’s government buildings and public spaces.
A video posted on the same day shows solar panels spreading across Malta’s landscape, starting from Valletta’s bastion walls, until the entire island is smothered under a blanket of panels.
Other videos show Borg tossing and turning in bed as he dreams of a celebratory Robert Abela, or fleeing from a crowd of baying journalists, a quip on a popular Labour attack line that Borg is afraid to answer reporters’ questions.
Another TikTok page, named ‘Wake up Alex Borg’ borrows a clip from the US version of sitcom The Office, casting a sheepish-looking Borg in the Steve Carell role as he is chastised for his incompetence.
Other pages, such as the recently-created ‘X Malta,’ use AI chatbots in dozens of posts both celebrating Labour candidates and proposals, as well as criticising PN’s plans.
Meanwhile, PN’s electoral slogan of Nifs Ġdid (A Fresh Start) has inspired a flurry of AI-generated images showing Borg with a cigarette or joint in hand.
Trolls target Int Malta slogan
Labour has also attracted the ire of online trolls in recent weeks.
After Labour unveiled its electoral slogan, Int Malta (You Are Malta), social media was flooded with AI-generated images poking fun at the slogan, all of them a variation on the same theme, pointing to Malta’s ballooning foreign population.
One widely shared image changes the slogan to “Int India” (You Are India), while several others depict crowds of foreigners holding banners emblazoned with the slogan aloft.
Other posts show Robert Abela dressed up as a race car driver, a reference to frequent accusations of indicisiveness and his carrying out u-turns on key decisions.
Controversial Labour figures, such as former housing minister Roderick Galdes, have also been the subject of AI-generated content, such as one video showing Galdes’ face morphing into that of a pig.
Meanwhile, some online political aficionados are trying to use AI in a more productive way, sometimes with mixed results.
One Labour-affiliated page, named Moviment Laburista – Progressivi u Liberali.AI, describes itself as “using automation to share content, amplify civic awareness, and make knowledge accessible”.
In practice, the page appears to use AI to share posts and clips from election-related events to its 27,000 followers.
Another page, named Malta Short News adopts a similar approach, presenting brief footage of the day’s election-related news, complete with an AI voiceover.
In an unusual turn, the page also uses AI to create highly-stylised cartoon thumbnails of its subjects, with readers frequently greeted with disarming anime-style figures of Abela and Borg.
Online trolls have embraced artificial intelligence throughout the campaign.
Fact Check, Politics, Technology
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Originally published here.
