Bukele Halloween ban was a deepfake hoax, El Salvador confirms

Bukele did not ban Halloween: the video was a deepfake

A video of Nayib Bukele announcing that "as of today, Halloween is banned in El Salvador" spread across social media until it made its way into news outlets and messaging groups. The mouth was not in sync with the voice. That detail, which anyone can check by pausing the video, was enough for deepfake detection tools and journalistic fact-checking to debunk the clip: the Salvadoran president has not banned the holiday, and the measure appears neither on his X account, nor on the Casa Presidencial website, nor in the Diario Oficial, where any veto of that magnitude would have to be published.

There is a certain irony to the scene. A hoax about alleged authoritarianism turned, within hours, into a credulity test for those who shared it enthusiastically. And there was enthusiasm on both sides: some celebrated it as a gesture of cultural hygiene; others attacked the supposed strongman who was banning imported holidays. Neither camp bothered to open the original video.

What the manipulated video actually said

The clip attributed a blunt statement to Bukele: "Halloween is strictly banned in El Salvador. We want nothing to do with celebrations related to paganism here." The montage imitated the president's tone and was spread with the usual packaging: a YouTube channel, a messaging account, and a religious apostolate thrown in. The distribution chain included a Colombian religious ministry that, in theory, one would expect to exercise more caution before forwarding it.

The fact-check came from Univision's Detector, which applied a free deepfake detection platform and searched keywords on Google. The result: **the voice is not synchronized with the facial movements**. It is the first clue that gives away most of these montages, and the easiest to check without any tools. The second: a measure like this would have been reported by every Salvadoran outlet —*La Prensa Gráfica*, *El Diario de Hoy*— and by international news agencies, not just in a stray video.

Why a hoax like this works so well

Because it confirms what each side already believed. Those who distrust Bukele's style found in the video proof of his authoritarian drift. Those who sympathize with him saw a gesture of cultural sovereignty against American influence. The hoax convinced no one: it gave them permission to double down.

The episode also reveals a rift in the debate over Halloween in Spain. Some argue the holiday is an American import that displaces local traditions —masquerades, carnivals, All Saints' Day— and that public schools have adopted it to have one less day of class. On the other side weighs the opposing argument: children love dressing up and there is no real imposition, just as no one forces anyone into a fast-food chain. The debate over *jalogüen* has been deadlocked for decades, and a hoax about a country eight thousand kilometers away reignited it in a couple of hours.

The pagan origins and the Catholic version of the holiday

The religious critique has a long history. Halloween comes from a Celtic festival marking the start of the dark season, and the Christian Church absorbed the date by moving the celebration of All Saints' Day from May 13 to November 1. On that substrate, part of Catholicism still sees the night of witches as a satanic wrapper. From there to calling for its ban is a stretch, but the stretch is easily crossed when the target of the hoax is a president who is credited with all kinds of defiance.

The unsettling detail: the video is recycled. A year later it is circulating again around the same dates, almost word for word. The hoax is not new; what is new is that this time it was shared by people who consider themselves skeptical of official narratives. Next time, pause and watch the mouth.