A Brazillian TV presenter had her image and voice falsified to spread disinformation in what is believed to be the first 'deepfake' the country has seen as the election campaign period kicks off this year.

The realistic yet doctored video mixes the voice of Renata Vasconcellos reporting from ‘Jornal Nacional’, with results of a false voting poll from old footage.

TV Globo confirmed that Renata’s video is not original and reported it. Ipec, an institute that conducts electoral polls and is cited in the 'deepfake', has denounced the material in the Misinformation Alert System.

The video spread quickly on social media – one clip found on YouTube had more than 1,400 views in just 12 hours and was already confusing voters. “Isn’t this research from 2018?”, asked a user in one of the post’s comments.