Election deepfakes have gone from rare incidents to a common threat to democratic processes worldwide. As AI tools have become cheaper and easier to access, deepfakes have spread rapidly across multiple countries and platforms. They're now a regular feature of elections globally, used to mislead voters and undermine trust in the electoral process. Our research reveals how widespread this problem has become, which regions are most affected, and where deepfakes are spreading the fastest.

Methodology and sources

This study used data from the AI Incident Database, Resemble AI, and the OECD to create a combined dataset covering deepfake incidents from January 2020 to September 2026. Incidents were included if they involved synthetic video, images, or audio, were documented in news media reports, and were related to elections.

Each incident was classified by target country, origin, and distribution platform. The findings represent a conservative estimate based on publicly reported incidents, while the source databases included records drawn from media coverage in multiple languages.

We also included relevant incidents identified in Surfshark’s 2025 election deepfake research, particularly those involving countries not represented in the three source databases. However, for the 2026 edition, we revamped the data collection process and did not rely on the methodology used in the 2025 study.

For the complete research material behind this study, click here.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2024 American Community Survey (ACS), via USAFacts. Rates represent the number of people aged 15 and older who reported getting married or divorced within the previous 12 months, expressed per 1,000 people in that population. Data is for 2024, by state of residence

A recent paper in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, based on a Gallup survey experiment involving over 65,000 people across 60 countries, examines how people's acceptance of inequality depends on whether it results from luck or merit.

The researchers distinguish between three types of fairness views:

• Libertarians: Accept inequality whether it results from luck or merit.
• Meritocrats: Accept inequality resulting from merit, but not from luck.
• Egalitarians: Reject inequality regardless of its source.

A few interesting findings:

• China has the highest estimated share of libertarians in the study, at 71%. Chinese respondents made very little distinction between inequality caused by luck and inequality caused by merit, second only to India in this respect. Both countries also have among the lowest shares of meritocrats.
• In most countries, people believe luck plays a greater role than merit in explaining inequality. China is one of the few exceptions, where merit is seen as slightly more important.
• Poorer and less individualistic countries tend to have higher shares of egalitarians.
• Countries with higher shares of meritocrats also tend to redistribute more income. The authors suggest that meritocrats are primarily at odds with libertarians, who are relatively accepting of luck-based inequality. Where meritocratic views are more prevalent, there tends to be less tolerance for inequality arising from luck, which may help explain greater redistribution.

Note: "Libertarian" here refers to a specific fairness preference in the researchers' model, not necessarily to libertarian political ideology.

Source: Fairness Across the World, Quarterly Journal of Economics (2026), Figure VI

This breaks conflict resolution into four sections kids can actually follow on their own, how to speak kindly, how to listen without interrupting, how to problem solve together, and what to do when feelings get too big to work through right away. Simple enough to print and put somewhere visible so it becomes the default response instead of something that needs to be coached every single time.

More detailed interactive version

I saw this post from months ago about acid rain. Everyone who answered in the comments pretty much told the same story and the data seems to back them up.

Sulfur dioxide helps cause acid rain. When sulfur dioxide (SO₂) and sulfate aerosols in the air dissolve into cloud droplets and precipitates onto the soil, you get what's called wet sulfate deposition. Wet sulfate deposition (a primary indicator of acid rain) is the transfer of sulfate from the atmosphere to Earth's surface through rain, snow, or fog.

Power plants covered by EPA’s programs dramatically reduced their emissions while maintaining nearly the same electricity output. Pollution controls and a shift toward lower-emitting fuels helped drive the change.

In the last ~20 years, wet sulfur deposition decreased by 73%. While the acid rain issue is seeing progress, ecosystems are still recovering.

EPA’s explanation

23 countries have a bigger national debt than GDP.

Just 16 years ago (2010), only 5 countries had a +100% debt to GDP ratio.

I wonder who benefits of this trends?

• Every manned and unmanned Project Mercury flights, 1959 to 1963
• Source: NASA Project Mercury - https://www.nasa.gov/project-mercury/
• Tools: SVG and JS
• Size: 1440x8700
• Horizontal axis: Time in flight (Log scale)
• Larger circle: Manned missions
• Interactive version for better viewing: https://sand7888.github.io/project-mercury/

Record breaking meaning the then-largest capacity rating

Unweighted averages by industry, based on LinkedIn data through June 2026.

Sources: World Economic Forum, Global Gender Gap Report 2026

Sources: International Energy Agency, Statistical Review of World Energy

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