“AI SLOPaganda”: Inside the Rise of AI-Generated Politics on Social Media
How AI-generated content has become a tool for shaping political opinion
By Ryan Garipoli
Over the past couple months, a new trend on social media has become increasingly hard to ignore. Encountering an AI-generated video has become a norm of modern social platform feeds, with seemingly every social media space having adopted some form of AI counterpart. While this shift is alarming in a broad cultural sense, what is somewhat unsettling is how deep it has seeped into the political sphere.
AI generated social media posts, commonly referred to as “AI SLOP”, have already become a large part of American politics, with prominent figures including President Donald Trump and former New York City Mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo posting their own AI SLOP on their personal social media pages. With the lack of regulation on AI in social media, AI SLOP threatens to blur the line between persuasion and deception in ways that are increasingly difficult to detect. Some vendors of political AI SLOP would argue that the purpose of their content is to entertain rather than misinform, but experts suggest it has had consequences for voters' perceptions of reality, and operates in ways outside the views of mainstream media.
One day about a month ago I came across an instance of this type of content while scrolling the social platform X. I saw a post using AI to edit the message of an Art work that initially read “Protect Trans Kids”. The poster had used AU to change the message to“Protect Kids” and removed the Transgender flag from the art. The user also added the caption “protect kids from groomers”. The user, @philosopherleo on X, used AI to change the message of a piece of art into an attack against a minority group. The post has been viewed more than 1.7 million times since November 23rd, prompting me to explore how AI SLOP circulates beyond the traditional media’s reach and how it could shape political communication in the coming years.
Gala Lopez, @galowookie on X, is the initial creator of the artwork posted on X. When asked whether she gave permission to have her work recycled as an AI SLOP post, Lopez explained that her art was taken against her wishes and that it’s something that they’ve seen happen to others in their community often. “I have seen others become victims of similar situations, mainly artists that got their work altered without permission to display Zionist or transphobic messages,” Lopez said. Lopez also said they believe AI SLOP already has a large place in political rhetoric. “Anyone can display their views in a way that’s fast and requires minimal effort. It’s detrimental to creators and the environment, and it makes one’s message unserious from the get go,” Lopez said. “It’s easy to confuse an AI post for just something to catch your attention.”
One of the AI vendors on social media that produces political AI SLOP is GreenFrog LABS LLC, a video production service made up of AI artists. While the creation of political content is not the primary function of the company, its social media page often posts politically driven content, even having been reposted by President Trump in the past. Greg Scott is the talent manager for GreenFrog Labs who says that the posts on their social media account are for entertainment purposes. When asked about whether he was worried about the criticisms of how the content GreenFrog Labs posts could contribute to the spread of misinformation, Scott said he’s not worried about it, but that any negative effects were not the company’s intent. “Everyone criticizes everything, so I don’t really worry about it. I’m more worried about getting my artists work and growing the company,” Scott said. Scott believes it’s on the viewer to decipher what’s real when watching AI videos and doesn’t believe in censorship. However, Scott added that he believes GreenFrog Labs’ videos can influence political attitudes. “We had President Trump repost our content, he wouldn’t repost if he didn’t think it was influential,” Scott said.
Experts are skeptical of the consequences the creation of content like that of GreenFrog Labs’ social media pages can have. Dr. Emma Briant is an Associate Professor at the University of Notre Dame and expert on contemporary propaganda and information warfare. Briant believes that even when AI-generated videos are discernibly fake, it still has an impact on voters’ emotions and opinions. “It's the message, the emotion and the narrative people engage with, not necessarily accuracy. Studies show people often engage with disinformation despite knowing it is false,” Briant said. Briant believes that AI SLOP can effectively be used to degrade credibility of political figures, such as in the case of the NYC mayoral race when Andrew Cuomo used AI to deepfake his opponent Zohran Mamdani. “I think that it (AI) degrades trust in politics. It erodes the sense that politics is professionalized, authentic, and credible,” Briant said.
Dr. Jennifer Stromer-Galley, a Professor at Syracuse University and expert in social media and rhetorical studies, concurs with Briant’s belief that AI SLOP undermines credibility in politics. “When Elon Musk is retweeting deep fake videos from the 2024 election of Kamala Harris saying things that she absolutely did not say… then there’s a set of comments of people like, yeah, that’s what she said,” Stromer-Galley said. “They confirm a belief they’re gonna have whether or not it’s true.”
Experts warn that AI SLOP, as a new political medium, carries a real risk in shifting political attitudes. The Syracuse University College Democrats provide the perspective of how students, who some consider are the target audience, engage with AI SLOP on social media.
Jurgen Baeza Burnel, a Senior and President of SU College Dems, thinks it's a discouraging sign that President Trump uses AI in the capacity he does, believing it sends a message condoning the use of AI SLOP by others. “With the office (The White House) so high up using AI, people are going to look at that and say we can definitely use AI for our campaign. We can use it to spread misinformation,” Baeza Burnel said. Derry Oliver, a sophomore and Vice President of SU College Dems, worries about racism spreading among youth as a result of AI trends on social media. “It’s (AI) very harmful because minorities are being mocked and stereotyped. It’s very easy for AI to take a hold of those stereotypes and turn them into something far worse,” Oliver said. “It eggs on their audience to do the same and engage with those stereotypes,” Maddie Shumate, a freshman and social media manager of SU College Dems, commented that she believes the 65+ demographic is just as vulnerable if not more to this kind of rhetoric. “I do think that college students are susceptible to AI influence because it’s more prevalent on social media, but I think that AI and deep fakes target the 65+ group because it’s such a huge voting block,” Shumate said.
AI-generated content has already reshaped political rhetoric across social media, and many argue that anyone not producing their own form of AI SLOP is already behind. When Scott was asked if he thinks AI-generated media is the future of political campaigning, he said it already is. “I think meme culture is a major reason Trump won the presidency. I think he understands it better and how to use it to his advantage,” Scott said. “I’m sure the other side is watching and learning, he just got ahead of the game.”
There is an effort by others to keep AI out of politics. Baeza Burnel believes his organization to do his best to keep AI out of politics. “We should lead by example. We as an organization want to call out other organizations, either on the left or right, if they’re using AI,” Baeza Burnel said. Briant, while pessimistic about the cultural effects AI will continue to have, believes that breakthrough campaigns like Zohran Mamdani’s defeat of Andrew Cuomo’s campaign, which utilised AI, provides an alternative to an AI future. “What gives me some hope is the emergence of break-through campaigns like Mamdani’s in New York that grew through in-person mobilization and videos designed around authenticity,” Briant said. “I think if copied, it could harness a wide desire for authenticity,”
