Bruised politicians' egos: Andreas Glarner and Sibel Arslan in the battle of the mimosas

During the 2023 election campaign, SVP National Councillor Andreas Glarner allowed himself either a small joke or an outrageous remark, depending on your point of view. He published a video generated using artificial intelligence in which Green Party politician Sibel Arslan endorses him for election and utters SVP slogans. In reality, Arslan and Glarner hold completely opposing views.

The furor was immense. Arslan involved the courts, and Glarner was forced to delete the video. The civil proceedings alone were costly; he had to pay nearly 4,000 Swiss francs in court and legal fees. Now he faces criminal proceedings: Last week, the relevant National Council committee voted to lift Glarner's immunity, and the case will soon be referred to the Council of States committee.

The National Council Commission cited as the reason for its decision that Glarner's deepfake video "could be used for the first time for the newly created criminal offense of identity theft." Deepfakes undoubtedly pose a serious threat. This is especially true when it is no longer possible to determine whether a video is real or AI-generated. This can easily discredit people. However, Glarner's little video is so amateurishly made that it's immediately obvious even to laypeople that it can't be real. Arslan's movements appear too unnatural, and his voice is too monotonous. Furthermore, Glarner clearly labeled the video with the words "Generated with AI." There's no chance of it being mistaken for reality.

If this video nevertheless constitutes an “identity abuse,” then every caricature, every parody of a politician is one as well.

Is Sibel Arslan simply thin-skinned, setting the entire legal machinery in motion over a pubescent social media post? Perhaps. Andreas Glarner, however, is no better in this regard. The master of dishing out punishment has been waging a legal battle for years against a Twitter user who called him a "crazy right-wing extremist." The case is now before the Federal Supreme Court.

Of all people, a representative of the party that sees itself as a bastion of freedom of expression spares no effort or expense to ensure that the author of a harmless tweet is punished.

Glarner and Arslan are in good company. Representatives of the last German government, in particular, showed great zeal in bringing the authors of potentially offensive social media posts to justice. Economics Minister Robert Habeck went the furthest, virtually industrializing the prosecution of alleged offenders: He commissioned a startup to conduct an automated search for potentially criminal posts. The result was hundreds of criminal charges.

One case caused outrage for days: Police searched a man's house after he had shared a meme (an online joke) featuring a photo of Habeck. The logo of the cosmetics company Schwarzkopf was displayed beneath the head of the leading Green politician, and the company name was changed to "Schwachkopf" (Idiot). Later, the harsh operation was justified by the fact that the suspect had allegedly committed other online offenses.

Thousands of memes like the one about the "idiot" are circulating on social media. Some politicians don't find this funny – and are flooding the already overburdened justice system with trivial cases.

For Habeck, this backfired; hardly anyone showed any understanding for the approach. In the Arslan v. Glarner case, only politicians are involved. But here, too, it's probably less about the law than about bruised politicians' egos.