Bitcoin Used to Pay For AI Fake Videos in Turkish Election Says Opposition

“The dark web world you are trying to deal with will fall into the hands of foreign intelligence. Playing Cambridge Analytica is beyond your capacity, boys.”

That’s what Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the Turkish opposition (CHP), said last week amid allegations deepfakes are being used to discredit the opposition.

Now the chairman of CHP, Tuncay Özkan, has come out with a bit more details according to local Turkish media.

Ozkan said the Directorate of Communications had reached out to Kilicdaroglu to state that propaganda videos will be made against them via the DarkWeb with sound and image manipulation.

“They conveyed that such a thing has been done and that it is against democracy, human rights and the law.

Because they were not comfortable with their conscience, they came and told us. We also have a list of names,” Ozkan said.

These videos were paid for with bitcoin, according to the chairman, so bringing crypto to what some have called the most important election of this year.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the current Turkish president, showed recently a fake video that had Kilicdaroglu appear as if he was endorsing the PKK, a classified terrorist organization in the EU, US and of course in Turkey.

Ozkan says they were warned videos would be manipulated to make it look like they are connected to FETÖ and the PKK.

Another potentially more consequential allegedly fake video arose in the past 24 hours that had Muharrem İnce, a presidential candidate from a far smaller party, withdraw his candidateship.

He said an alleged sex tape circulating online was a deepfake, using footage taken from “an Israeli porn site,” but he is now nonetheless out of the race.

Some say that affects CHP as with Ince still running, a runoff was almost guaranteed, leading Kilicdaroglu to make this statement:

“Dear Russian Friends, You are behind the montages, conspiracies, Deep Fake contents and tapes that were exposed in this country yesterday. If you want the continuation of our friendship after May 15, get your hands off the Turkish state.”

Russia and Turkey have a complicated relationship of geopolitical rivalry, yet cooperation on oil, gas and tourism.

Erdogan and the Russian president Vladimir Putin have faced off each other, most prominently in Libya where it is said Putin cried for three days after Turkey defeated him.

Yet some say Russia thinks Kilicdaroglu would be even worse, potentially because he might seek a closer relationship with Europe.

Not that Erdogan hasn’t, but as the party of Ataturk, European flags have been spotted in rallies supporting Kilicdaroglu.

Close Election

Kilicdaroglu came to our attention in 2021 after the Turkish central bank issued a diktat banning bitcoin usage for payments.

Just how much that was the central bank and just how much it was the government by proxy, wasn’t too clear but some Turkish government officials started making some statements at the time that they might even go further.

Eventually Erdogan said that only dictators ban bitcoin, and so that story moved on, but not before in the midst of it Kilicdaroglu raised the bitcoin flag as we reported at the time.

“Blockchain and crypto are the only areas where our $1 billion (Unicorn) ventures will emerge,” Kılıçdaroğlu said.

Just how much crypto featured in this election is not clear but at the time Turkish cryptonians were paying attention and one of them said:

“I have been voting for the AKP for 20 years, but in this election will now vote for the CHP. My president, for my bitcoins.”

A change of power therefore is on the cards after circa 20 years of the AKP ruling the crossroad of the world.

And if there is such change this Sunday, there will be a new Turkey, at least after the initial transition.

A more Ataturk Turkey, and since Europe is very friendly to crypto, then a more crypto friendly Turkey.

Erdogan however has largely stayed off our space, so we wouldn’t mind the vote whichever way it goes, but based on the few public statements, Kılıçdaroğlu seems to be more crypto friendly.

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• Source: https://www.trustnodes.com/2023/05/12/bitcoin-used-to-pay-for-ai-fake-videos-in-turkish-election-says-opposition