How deepfakes can threaten Nepal’s fragile democracy

People believe what they see. But what if seeing should not always mean believing in this age of fast-evolving digital trickery? Last year, a realistic-looking video supposedly showing Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy went viral across that country’s social media. In it, Zelenskyy encourages citizens to “lay down arms” against the Russian invasion.

Had Ukrainians fallen for this, the geopolitical consequences could have been severe. It was soon revealed as a deepfake – an AI-generated synthetic video with someone’s likeness inserted into source content. As Nepal rides the edge of increasing internet penetration and digital vulnerability, this ominously rising technology poses a creeping threat with far-reaching impacts on our upcoming elections, policy discourse, ethnic relations, national security and the very foundations of our belief system.