Last Friday, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen announced at a press conference that Easter, Pentecost, Christmas and all remaining public holidays would be abolished. After all, the Danes are far too lazy. That urgently needs to change. In the future there will only be one holiday: Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim festival of breaking the fast.
In truth, Frederiksen never said any of this. The whole thing was a deepfake, one that seemed deceptively real, but fake video produced by the right-wing populist Dansk Folkeparti and circulated by its chairman Morten Messerschmidt.
“It was just a dream. Back to work.”
The video points out twice that Frederiksen never gave this speech like this: Firstly, during her supposed speech, a small logo, similar to that of a television station, appears at the top right of the picture. It says: “AI generated”. On the other hand, after her speech, you can see Messerschmidt lying with his head on his computer keyboard. He jolts awake and says, “It was just a dream. Back to work. Damn how I miss this holiday.”
Despite these hints, many people seem to have fallen for it. Which sparked a debate on the question of where to draw the boundaries of satire in times of deepfake and eroding trust in democratic structures. Jesper Tække, media scientist at Aarhus University, criticizedsuch deceptively real-looking videos would categorically undermine trust in all politicians because they sow doubts about what and who one can still believe.
The reason for the video was the abolition of Store Bededag, which corresponds to the German day of repentance and prayer, but did not fall at the end of November, but was always celebrated on the fourth Friday after Easter. In February 2023, the government parties voted to declare this Great Day of Prayer a public holiday for economic reasons. So we had to work last Friday. That day Messerschmidt released the video on X. In a tweet, Messerschmidt defended himself against all critical allegations with the argument that if you don’t recognize that the whole thing is satire and a fake, “then I don’t have the problem.”
Messerschmidt was once affected by a deepfake
Ironically, Messerschmidt himself warned about deepfakes almost exactly four years ago, on April 20, 2020, on the same platform, which was then called Twitter. It is a “fundamental democratic problem when the recipients out there can no longer know what is true and what is false,” he wrote at the time, after cleverly crafted fake news about him was circulated, albeit from anonymous accounts. At the time, Messerschmidt considered filing a police report.
Also on Friday, the right-wing Danish Liberal Alliance had a Video on Instagram released, which comes across like a film announcement. It is reminiscent of the works of Wes Anderson in its strong stylization and flashy costumes and promises the summer film “Tyveriet av Store bededag” (Theft of the Great Day of Prayer) with Mette Frederiksen in the leading role. This video attracted less criticism because the strong alienation of the Prime Minister made it clear from the outset that the whole thing was fake and satire, according to Ask Hesby Holm, director of the organization Digitalt Ansvar, which campaigns for responsible use of digital media . Hesby Holm emphasizedit is fundamentally important that as a viewer you can clearly distinguish between reality and fiction.
Lisbeth Bech-Nielsen, digitalization spokesperson for the opposition Socialistisk Folkeparti, announced that she would use Messerschmidt’s deepfake as an opportunity to develop common guidelines for the use of such videos in public discourse in the Folketing, the Danish parliament.