Deepfakes in Local Politics: How a York Councillor Was Targeted

The States vs. Deepfakes | A Look at U.S. State Deepfake Laws

While Congress stalls, state legislatures have quietly become the front line in the fight against deepfakes. This episode features Ilana Beller, who leads Public Citizen’s state legislative work on AI and has helped move model legislation through more than 40 states, focused on the two areas moving fastest: non-consensual intimate deepfakes and election deepfakes. We discuss: * What the Take It Down Act accomplished and left on the table, including the missing private right of action * How intimate deepfake laws work, and why circulation is easier to prosecute than creation * What separates a strong law from a weak one: enforcement and a high bar for consent * App-level bans on nudification tools and barring platforms from advertising them * How election deepfake laws use labeling and pre-election windows while carving out satire and parody * Why these bills draw rare bipartisan support, and the federal moratorium threatening to preempt them This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thedeepfakedialogues.substack.com [https://thedeepfakedialogues.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Deepfakes in Local Politics: How a York Councillor Was Targeted

What happens when a local councillor becomes the target of a deepfake smear campaign? In March 2026, a deepfake video of Cllr Pete Kilbane, Labour Deputy Leader of City of York Council, began circulating online. In the clip, his digitally fabricated likeness appeared to hand wads of cash to balaclava-clad men, as if paying them to remove flags. The video was fake. The campaign of intimidation surrounding it was not. In this episode, Pete walks through what happened in York after St George’s Cross and Union flags began appearing on lampposts across the city as part of Operation Raise the Colours. Hope Not Hate and other public reporting have linked the movement to figures associated with Tommy Robinson and the far-right party Britain First. We discuss: * How the flag campaign played out in York and why the politics behind it matter * The deepfake video of Pete, how his colleagues first found out, and why “it’s just satire” does not capture the harm * The threats, doxxing, and intimidation faced by council staff and contractors * What the Online Safety Act can and cannot do when fake content spreads through closed groups * Pete’s concerns about the movement’s links to MAGA and the American far right * How synthetic media is being weaponised to erode trust in local democracy * How the council responded to this incident This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thedeepfakedialogues.substack.com [https://thedeepfakedialogues.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Deepfake Nudes in Schools: When AI-Enabled Abuse Hits the Classroom

Content note: This episode discusses AI-generated child sexual abuse material, non-consensual intimate imagery, sextortion, and sexual abuse. AI-powered “nudify” apps are increasingly being used by students to create deepfake sexual images of classmates, but most schools still do not have clear policies for prevention, reporting, discipline, or victim support. Riana Pfefferkorn, a policy fellow at Stanford HAI, joins DeepFake Dialogues to discuss her policy brief, Addressing AI-Generated Child Sexual Abuse Material: Opportunities for Educational Policy, and what schools, lawmakers, platforms, and communities need to understand about how this is actually playing out. Read the policy brief here: https://hai.stanford.edu/policy/addressing-ai-generated-child-sexual-abuse-material-opportunities-for-educational-policy [https://hai.stanford.edu/policy/addressing-ai-generated-child-sexual-abuse-material-opportunities-for-educational-policy] We discuss: * The difference between fully synthetic AI-CSAM and images depicting real, identifiable children * The lasting harm to victims, and why it often doesn’t end at graduation * How unprepared school responses can make that harm worse * What schools should have in place before an incident happens * Whether student offenders should face criminal punishment or behavioural intervention * The role of “nudify” app bans, platform liability, and payment processors * Grok, xAI, and what happens when mainstream AI tools enable sexualised image abuse * Why prevention has to include consent, dignity, privacy, and digital citizenship This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thedeepfakedialogues.substack.com [https://thedeepfakedialogues.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

When AI Fakes Go Wild: Synthetic Media and Wildlife Conservation

AI-generated wildlife videos are flooding social media, and the consequences go far beyond misleading content. Dana Wilson of Wildlife SOS, an Indian nonprofit running 13 rescue centers and emergency hotlines across the country, explains how synthetic animal videos are distorting public understanding of wildlife behavior, putting both people and animals at risk. We discuss: * How Wildlife SOS’s real rescue footage has been stolen and spliced with AI-generated endings * The public safety threat of videos that make dangerous predators look friendly and approachable * AI-generated attack videos stoking fear and calls for culling in communities that coexist with wildlife * Why even “harmless” AI-generated animal content erodes trust in genuine conservation storytelling * How deepfake technology could make these problems far worse as synthetic video becomes harder to detect * How Wildlife SOS is setting internal AI policies to protect the integrity of their work * What creators and platforms should consider before posting AI-generated wildlife content Learn more about Wildlife SOS at wildlifesos.org and watch real rescue videos on their YouTube channel. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thedeepfakedialogues.substack.com [https://thedeepfakedialogues.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Could a Deepfake Start a Nuclear War?

In this episode, I’m joined by Erin D. Dumbacher, Stanton Nuclear Security Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, to discuss her recent Foreign Affairs article “How Deepfakes Could Lead to Doomsday.” We explore how deepfakes and AI hallucinations could infiltrate the systems designed to prevent nuclear catastrophe — and why the story of Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who in 1983 chose not to trust his screen when it told him American nukes were incoming, matters more now than ever. We also dig into the Pentagon’s rush to integrate AI across the Department of Defense, why AI trained on nuclear threats has almost no real data to learn from, and why the most dangerous scenario isn’t a machine launching a weapon — it’s bad information cascading through a decision-making chain where the president has minutes, not hours, to act. We discuss: * Deepfakes of Zelensky and Putin during the Ukraine war — and what could have gone differently * The Pentagon’s GenAI.mil rollout and the risks of moving too fast * AI hallucinations vs. social media deepfakes — two distinct threats to nuclear stability * The data problem: training AI when we’ve only had two nuclear attacks in history * How misinformation could trigger cascading crises under compressed nuclear timelines * Reforms to U.S. nuclear launch authority in an era where information can’t be taken at face value This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thedeepfakedialogues.substack.com [https://thedeepfakedialogues.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]