Jair Bolsonaro deepfake video — Nov 2026

What happened

In July 2026, an AI-generated avatar of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was used to endorse his son Flávio Bolsonaro’s presidential bid during a party convention. At the time of the event, the real Jair Bolsonaro was under house arrest and strictly forbidden from making public statements, including on social media. The 46-second video, which included a disclosure of its AI origins, featured the avatar criticizing the circumstances of the former president's arrest and naming his son as his successor. The real Jair Bolsonaro, through a representative, denied authorizing the creation or use of the video.

Following the event, a coalition led by the Workers’ Party challenged the video in court. The camp supporting Flávio Bolsonaro argued that no wrongdoing occurred because the video included an AI disclosure. Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court (TSE) ultimately ruled in a 5–2 decision that the country’s deepfake ban did not apply to this specific instance. The court determined that because the video was presented at a closed party event rather than as explicit campaign advertising, it did not meet the criteria for prohibited electoral propaganda. This ruling highlighted the difficulties regulators face in defining the boundaries between political expression and deceptive synthetic content.