Old Propaganda, New Technology: EU Governance of Deepfake Disinformation in Conflict Settings

Deepfakes, understood as synthetic media created using AI techniques that replace or manipulate a person’s likeness, represent a qualitative escalation in the history of disinformation. In conflict settings, their capacity to produce convincing false evidence introduces systemic threats to trust, civilian agency, and the conditions necessary for peace. This paper examines these threats within the normative framework of the right to peace, understood not merely as the absence of violence but as a positive entitlement to dignity, reliable communication, and the institutional conditions that sustain conflict resolution. Information integrity emerges as a critical conceptual bridge between this rights framework and the governance of synthetic media. The paper traces the historical trajectory of disinformation in warfare from classical propaganda to contemporary deepfake deployment. It argues that deepfake propaganda threatens to undermine the right to peace by contaminating conflict-relevant information, increasing verification burdens for minority and dissident claims, and complicating monitoring, accountability and peacebuilding processes. Against this backdrop, the paper explores the capacity of existing European Union digital legal frameworks, including the AI Act, the Digital Services Act, and the General Data Protection Regulation, to address these threats, alongside the Union’s external norm-promotion policies. It concludes that while the EU’s multi-layered regulatory ecosystem represents a significant advance, structural limitations persist. In addition, deepfake disinformation must be recognised not as a technological artefact but as a structural threat to peaceful relations, requiring sustained and internationally coordinated governance responses.