In recent years, deepfakes have become a common subject in political discussions, often seen as the next major threat to democratic societies, because of their potential to worsen the information disorder. Their highly realistic nature has increased concerns that they could be used as a powerful tool for new and more effective disinformation, both in terms of credibility and ease of creation. However, reality has proven to be more complicated than many experts initially anticipated. Synthetic media have indeed entered political communication, but their uses go far beyond simple disinformation. This does not mean that deepfakes are not a threat. On the contrary, focusing solely on disinformation risks hiding the deeper, systemic issues caused by deepfakes, as well as the opportunities this technology may offer. deepfakes have the potential to reshape how information is perceived overall, acting as an epistemic threat by eroding trust in information and making it harder to gain new knowledge. 

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Before exploring the broader implications of political deepfakes, the persistence of deepfakes as a political threat raises an initial question: what exactly is a deepfake? Although the origin of the term is easy to trace, it was first used in relation to synthetic media in 2017 by a Reddit user called deepfake. The definition of what counts as a deepfake has broadened over time, leading to several competing interpretations.

Even at the level of dictionary definitions, subtle but significant differences become apparent. Showing the co-existence of different interpretations according to the cultural differences, the Merriam-Webster dictionary (American English) defines deepfakes as “an image or recording that has been convincingly altered and manipulated to misrepresent someone as doing or saying something that was not actually done or said,” while the Oxford English Dictionary (British English) provides a slightly different framing, defining a deepfake as “Any of various media, esp. a video, that has been digitally manipulated to replace one person's likeness with that of another, often used maliciously to show someone doing something that he or she did not do.” 

While both definitions recognize the range of formats and uses that deepfakes can assume, the latter adds a moral dimension by explicitly linking the technology to malicious intent. This difference in interpretation is also reflected in the way organizations and governments have addressed deepfakes through communications and legislation.

In the United States, for example, the TAKE IT DOWN Act, published in 2025, defines deepfakes as “digital forgery,” specifically as “an intimate visual depiction of an identifiable individual created or altered using AI or other technological means,” with an identifiable individual defined as someone “who appears........

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