Deepfake allegations harm Taiwan election candidate Luo Zhizheng
A deepfake video allegedly depicting Democratic Progressive Party legislator Luo Zhizheng surfaced during Taiwan's January 2024 elections, reportedly originating from offshore sources. Luo claimed the video was election interference, but it damaged his candidacy and contributed to his electoral loss by a narrow margin to his nationalist opponent.
What happened
In January 2024, before Taiwan's legislative elections, Apple Daily published an article titled 'Big legislator becomes adult film star? Luo Zhizheng suspected of leaking self-made intimate video,' reporting that a video believed to be of Democratic Progressive Party legislator Luo Zhizheng appeared on pornographic platforms.
Luo Zhizheng immediately responded on Facebook, stating the video was a deepfake created by foreign cyber operations to interfere with the election and that the person in the video was not him. He filed a complaint with the Investigation Bureau claiming election interference.
The ruling Chinese Nationalist Party's campaign spokesperson later announced possession of twenty additional high-resolution videos allegedly of Luo and sent them to investigators for authentication as potential deepfakes or Chinese interference.
Reported impact
The video's circulation damaged Luo Zhizheng's reputation significantly during the election period. He lost his legislative seat to Nationalist Party candidate Ye Yuanzhi by a narrow margin, ending his bid for a third consecutive term.
Index analysis
The New Taipei District Prosecutors Office traced the distribution networks and found that the websites and IP addresses hosting the video were located abroad, making source attribution impossible.
The prosecutors office determined that Apple Daily reported based on its own fact-checking and found no intentional violation of election law. Luo Zhizheng did not file a lawsuit against Apple Daily.
Prosecutors noted that the Investigation Bureau conducted testing of the video but stated that results could not be publicly disclosed under privacy and sexual abuse prevention laws without the victim's consent.
Governance controls
The New Taipei District Prosecutors Office closed the case after determining that the offshore location of hosting servers and IP addresses prevented identification of the distributor.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.