AI-Generated Voting Reports Campaigning for United Russia Appeared on Social Media

AI-generated voting reports campaigning for United Russia appeared on social media

Reports about participation in voting in the State Duma elections, generated by artificial intelligence, appeared on VK, “Vyorstka” noticed.

In total, at least ten such reports were found, with photos that services from Google and OpenAI identified as AI-generated. The first posts with photos of voters near polling stations appeared during the early-voting stage.

In them, users, in a structurally identical format, say that they voted for United Russia, backing up their position with a hashtag and describing the reason. At the same time, all the accounts were created recently: the earliest publications in each of them are dated August 14.

“I believe that business and the economy now need stability and predictability more than ever. I gave my vote for a clear course and infrastructure development — I chose United Russia. The job is done, now I can calmly go to work,” one post says.

Other reports were devoted to participation in voting during its main period. Some of them also contain United Russia hashtags.

For example, one user published a photo with a phone showing a message about successful voting in the DEG system, accompanying it with a caption saying that he was attaching a photo with the sign of the precinct election commission (that is, voting in person). The first post in this profile was made less than a day ago.

Another account, belonging to a girl, made a post about the elections written in a male voice. The first photo on this page was posted on September 8. Another girl made a post about the elections in which the browser page on the phone is displayed incorrectly.

At the same time, some of the profiles that published photos made by neural networks look real. For example, a user from Kemerovo published a post explaining why she votes in person, accompanying it with a generated photo in a kokoshnik.

“In the photo I am at a polling station in a dress with elements of traditional Russian attire and in a kokoshnik. For me, this is not just a beautiful image, but a way to gently remind people of our roots, of the richness of Russian culture and traditions,” the publication says.

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