The medieval world had its own ‘deepfakes’ – church officials cited a fake imperial decree for centuries

The forged document was used as leverage to try to expand papal control throughout the Italian peninsula.

By: Vanessa Corcoran, Georgetown University, The Conversation

Outlets: The Conversation

Published: September 24, 2026

Words: 1,303

Last Updated: 3 weeks, 3 days ago

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By Vanessa Corcoran, Georgetown University

With deepfakes on the rise, forgery and deception are often viewed as distinctly modern problems – a new era of misinformation made possible by artificial intelligence. One of the first alarming cases occurred at the start of the war in Ukraine when a doctored video appeared to show President Volodymyr Zelenskyy telling his soldiers to lay down their weapons.

Yet the impulse to deceive people by fabricating evidence far …

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