Examining the motivations of sharing political deepfake videos: the role of political brand hate and moral consciousness

Abstract

Purpose: Deepfakes are fabricated content created by replacing an original image or video with someone else. Deepfakes have recently become commonplace in politics, posing serious challenges to democratic integrity. The advancement of AI-enabled technology and machine learning has made creating synthetic videos relatively easy. This study explores the role of political brand hate and individual moral consciousness in influencing electorates' intention to share political deepfake content. Design/methodology/approach: The study creates and uses a fictional deepfake video to test the proposed model. Data are collected from N = 310 respondents in India and tested using partial least square–structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) with SmartPLS v3. Findings: The findings support that ideological incompatibility with the political party leads to political brand hate, positively affecting the electorates' intention to share political deepfake videos. This effect is partially mediated by users' reduced intention to verify political deepfake videos. In addition, it is observed that individual moral consciousness positively moderates the effect of political brand hate on the intention to share political deepfake videos. Intention to share political deepfake videos thus becomes a motive to seek revenge on the hated party, an expression of an individual's ideological hate and a means to preserve one's moral self-concept and strengthen their ideologies and moral beliefs. Originality/value: The study expands the growing discussion about disseminating political deepfake videos using the theoretical lens of the negative consumer-brand relationship. It validates the effect of political brand hate on irrational behavior that is intended to cause harm to the hated party. Further, it provides a novel perspective that individual moral consciousness may fuel the haters' desire to engage in anti-branding behavior. Political ideological incompatibility reflects ethical reasons for brand hate. Therefore, hate among individuals with high moral consciousness serves to preserve their moral self.