In a normal world, a man with the digital footprint of a gnat wouldn’t get very far in a political media cycle. If it were easy for someone like that to get publicity, no one would ever campaign, there wouldn’t be a thriving PR industry, and social media companies wouldn’t make millions from political advertising.
But it turns out, to nobody’s surprise, that we don’t live in a normal world, and all Mark Matlock – Reform UK candidate for Brixton and Clapham Hill – had to do was wait. He has gone from a political nobody to a hero vindicated at the centre of a social media storm, where users were drawn to the possibility of a political scandal where a party they likely detested had allegedly invented fake candidates with the help of Artificial Intelligence. Not only is he very much real; his story has helped identify some of the problems we have countering disinformation in the UK.
Absent from hustings and the election night itself, suspicions over whether Matlock was in fact an actual person were understandable, and certainly not improved by a candidate image that carries the sort of airbrushing you see teenagers do on photo editing apps. It also has heterochromia – differently coloured eyes – which is fairly rare amongst the general population, but extremely popular amongst AI generated avatars. Those who raised their eyebrows did so because the image appeared to tick all the boxes of manipulation.
The other point was that Mark Matlock wasn’t the only Reform UK candidate who carried an air of mystery. Byline Times reported the day before the election that several of the party’s candidates were unphotographed and unaccounted for on social media, and invisible across political media interviews – which included a lack of response to the questions Byline Times themselves sent their way.
Matlock’s photograph had been manipulated, but he was a real person. And we knew this before the news explosion this week. Byline Times issued a clarification and in its 5 July issue Private Eye reported that Matlock was accounted for, speaking to him and confirming that the photograph was edited to feature a plain background and change the colour of his tie to Reform’s trademark turquoise. AI Headshot Generators have been on the market for at least a year to help people without photographers try and craft LinkedIn friendly profile pictures; this is not the last photograph we are going to see like this.
None of this stopped the whipping of scepticism on social media. Posts claiming Matlock had been invented by AI were picking up speed despite the reports from Private Eye and clarification from Byline Times. You can tell how much the story has taken hold from Matlock’s own X replies.
On election day itself he was taking time to reply to people’s queries, answering: “I have been campaigning extremely hard, plus I have been helping in other areas. Five days ago I was struck down with pneumonia and haven’t been as able to as much as I would like.” In another, he added “it was edited for the background and tie colour change only. As darling Rishi only gave us all six weeks to get the election done, photographers were fully booked.”
By this week, the tenor had changed. “Are you just another far-left fake news journalist ? Or are you just another annoying pointless one ?” he riposted at yet another baseless demand.
At the time of writing, there is no evidence that candidates are fake – and yet social media posts and news articles are still proliferating, presumably to cash in on search interest.
“Did Reform UK create a fake general election candidate using AI?” asked the Evening Standard on Tuesday. “Reform UK under pressure to prove all its candidates were real people,” a headline read in The Guardian on Monday.
I feel nauseous about a lot of mis- and disinformation reporting in the UK for this reason. Too often publications promote a conspiracy before debunking it.
This story ultimately suits Reform, a party that markets itself as renegade and repeatedly unrepresented by mainstream media. Media scrutiny for them is not about being reasonably held accountable; it’s an attack. And when most of the “attacks” appear to be coming from social media users on a certain political side, it’s up to news media to temper, not tamper.
Instead, Matlock and Reform UK have been presented with something to rail against. Matlock has called it an “agenda”, I would call it an overreaction by the news industry to potential disinformation. A red flag should never stop journalists from investigating something – but it should make us more judicious with how we publish.
Instead of interrogating why the party was so poorly placed to organise, campaign and even photograph candidates, we’ve given Reform UK and their supporters yet another reason to feel alienated by the media.
Sophia Smith Galer is a multi-award-winning reporter, author and content creator based in London