Mark Zuckerberg deepfake calls out Congress for inaction over monopolies

‘The Zuck is fake but the message is real,’ Demand Progress ad campaign states

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg leaving The Merrion Hotel in Dublin (Niall Carson/PA) (PA Archive)

A tech advocacy group has created a deepfake video of Mark Zuckerberg aimed at criticising the US Congress over perceived inaction on antitrust legislation.

Demand Progress launched the ad campaign on Tuesday in an effort to urge lawmakers to introduce regulation that would target the market power of US tech giants.

In the AI-generated video, the fake Facebook founder and Meta boss appears dresses as the Monopoly Man in a visual and vocal imitation that appears almost indistinguishable from reality.

“Over the past five years, Congress has held over 30 hearings designed to hold big tech accountable,” the fake Zuckerberg states.

“Most of the time, it’s a lot like playing patty cake... It looks like the most consequential action that Congress is poised to take [is] a bipartisan bill to prevent companies like mine from self dealing is about to fade away like so many efforts to rein in big tech in the past.

“And when the House changes hands in January, who seriously thinks the Republicans will do any better than Democrats? Afterall, big tech is the golden goose that keeps giving and giving and giving... I don’t know about you, but it’s enough to make a handful of humble billionaires shoot themselves into space. Literally. We do that all the time now.”

The proposed legislation referred to is the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, and the Open App Markets Act, which Meta, Alphabet (Google), Amazon and Apple have all resisted.

The bill aims to prevent “certain discriminatory conduct by covered platforms shall be unlawful.”

Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The video concludes: “The Zuck is fake but the message is real. Congress only has a few weeks left to hold big tech accountable.”