Bitcoin Used To Pay For Fake AI Videos In Turkish Election Says Opposition – Trustnodes

“The dark web world you’re 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 that deep fakes are being used to discredit the opposition.

Now CHP chairman Tuncay Özkan has come out with a little more detail according to local Turkish media.

Ozkan said the Communications Directorate had contacted Kilicdaroglu to inform them that propaganda videos will be made against them via DarkWeb with audio and image manipulation.

“They conveyed that something like this 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 it. We also have a list of names,” Ozkan said.

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

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the current Turkish president, recently showed a fake video that made Kilicdaroglu look like he supported the PKK, a classified terrorist organization in the European Union, the United States and of course in Turkey.

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

Another potentially more consequential allegedly fake video emerged in the past 24 hours that prompted Muharrem İnce, a presidential candidate from a far smaller party, to withdraw his candidacy.

He said an alleged sex tape circulating online was a deep fake, using footage from “an Israeli porn site”, but he is now out of the running anyway.

Some say this affects the CHP, since Ince is still driving, a runoff was almost guaranteed, leading Kilicdaroglu to make this statement:

“Dear Russian friends, you are behind the montages, conspiracies, Deep Fake content and tapes exposed in this country yesterday. If you want to continue our friendship after May 15, get the hands of the Turkish state.”

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

Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin have met, most prominently in Libya where Putin is said to have cried for three days after Turkey defeated him.

Still, 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 at rallies supporting Kilicdaroglu.

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Kilicdaroglu came to our attention in 2021 after the Turkish Central Bank issued a diktat banning the use of bitcoin for payments.

Exactly how much was the central bank and how much was the government by proxy was not so clear, but some Turkish officials began to make some statements at the time that they might even go further.

Finally, Erdogan said that only dictators ban bitcoin, and so that story moved on, but not until the middle of it did Kilicdaroglu raise the bitcoin flag as we reported at the time.

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

Exactly how much crypto was involved in this election is not clear, but at the time, Turkish Kryptonians were paying attention and one of them said:

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

A change of power is therefore on the cards after around 20 years with the AKP ruling the world’s crossroads.

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

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

However, Erdogan has mostly stayed out of our room, so we wouldn’t mind the vote no matter how it goes, but based on the few public statements, Kılıçdaroğlu seems to be more crypto-friendly.