F rom fake images designed to cause fears of an immigrant “invasion” to other demonisation campaigns targeted at leaders such as Emmanuel Macron,

How the far right is weaponising AI-generated content in Europe

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2024-11-27 14:00:06

F rom fake images designed to cause fears of an immigrant “invasion” to other demonisation campaigns targeted at leaders such as Emmanuel Macron, far-right parties and activists across western Europe are at the forefront of the political weaponisation of generative artificial intelligence technology.

This year’s European parliamentary elections were the launchpad for a rollout of AI-generated campaigning by the European far right, experts say, which has continued to proliferate since.

This month, the issue reached the independent oversight board of Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta when the body opened an investigation into anti-immigration content on Facebook. The inquiry by the oversight board will look at a post from a German account featuring an AI-generated image emblazoned with anti-immigrant rhetoric.

It is part of a wave of AI-made rightwing content on social media networks. Posts elsewhere from Europe’s political extremes range from the Italian far right’s deployment of “photo-realistic” images of women and children eating insects to bolster a conspiracy theory about the intentions of “a global elite”, to Irish far-right images of a police officer stamping on Ireland’s flag and Islamophobic memes in the immediate aftermath of the Southport knife murders in the UK.