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“I was not looking to become the poster child of internet fakery, and I’m certainly not the first,” Curtis told The Times by phone Tuesday morning.

In late December, Badenoch had disputed Reform's claim that its membership had overtaken that of the Conservatives, accusing Farage of "fakery".

Far from raising questions about the clip’s veracity, it just fuelled backlash from people who thought the allegation of fakery was just an excuse or an attempt to evade accountability.

District Judge John A. Mendez illustrates the tension between efforts to protect against AI-powered fakery that could sway elections and the strong safeguards in the Bill of Rights for political speech.

That underscores the fakery purveyed by Trump and Vance about the purported virtues of tariffs.