The broadcaster said the video should offer “a severe warning about advanced technology that is allowing the proliferation of false and false information in the digital age”.
Canal 4 annually follows the Queen’s traditional speech with an “alternative Christmas message”. This message has been on the air since 1993.
It has long attracted controversy. People who had already given the alternative speech include Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the former president of Iran. Other notable guests include American whistleblower Edward Snowden, Jesse Jackson and the children who survived the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire.
But the 2020 iteration is quite different.
This year, Channel 4 hired VFX Framestore to create a fake Queen Elizabeth, who spoke openly about personal matters.
The video was manipulated with artificial intelligence technology.
The false queen also performed a dance choreography Tik Tok.
“Deepfake technology is the frightening new frontier in the battle between disinformation and the truth,” Channel 4 program director Ian Katz said in a statement.
“This year’s Alternative Christmas Speech – apparently delivered by one of the country’s best-known and most trusted figures – is a powerful reminder that we can no longer trust our own eyes.”
But Sam Gregory, program director at WITNESS, a group that trains activists around the world to use video safely, cautioned against exaggerating the threat of deepfake technology.
“Deepfakes exaggerate (currently) hypothetical threats from perfect political deepfakes … over real threats,” Gregory tweeted on December 24 in reaction to news of the alternative speech.