Politician Posted AI-Generated Deepfake of Judge, Faces Election Law Complaint
A South Korean politician reportedly posted an AI-generated deepfake image of a judge on Facebook during an election period and falsely claimed it was authentic. The Democratic Party filed a police complaint alleging election law violations for spreading false information and using the synthetic image to attack an opposition candidate.
What happened
On 20 May 2025, Park Su-young, a lawmaker from the People Power Party, posted a photograph on Facebook showing Ji Gyu-yeon, a judge presiding over President Yoon Suk-yeol's insurrection trial, eating grilled pork at a nightclub. Park later deleted the post.
The Democratic Party stated that the photograph was an AI-generated deepfake created using ChatGPT, and that the original creator had publicly disclosed the generation process in an online community. Park claimed that the grilled pork photograph was the original image and that the Democratic Party's version was a cropped version.
Reported impact
The Democratic Party alleged that Park's post constituted false statements made to disadvantage Democratic presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung, whom Park criticized for previously calling another politician's golf photograph a fabrication.
Index analysis
Park's actions reportedly involved posting AI-generated content while falsely claiming it was an original photograph, and using it to attack the opposing party during an election period.
Governance controls
The Democratic Party's election law support unit filed a complaint with police on 22 May 2025 alleging violation of election law provisions on false statements and unfair election campaigning.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.