A recent video from around social media platforms in circulation, which shows President Joe Biden allegedly threatening to impose sanctions against South Africa, the ruling party of ANC (African National Congress), if the party wins the upcoming elections, is a deepfake.
In the video, the U.S. president is heard saying, “If the ANC wins the next election, we will impose immediate sanctions and declare South Africa an enemy state. The whole of the European Union will back us with this, and together, we will fight for the freedom of South Africans. This is our message to the world.”
Detection of false claims and Deepfakes
The video went viral on platforms like TikTok, Facebook, and Twitter. Investigations show that the footage is the outcome of artificial intelligence, which is a technology that produces videos using the celebrity voice generator Parrot AI.
The sanctions will be imposed on South Africa if the ruling African National Congress (ANC) becomes victorious in the May 29, 2024 elections. Currently, the ANC is the main political party that has been in power in South Africa for more than 30 years. Based on the surveys, the party may no longer be the dominant force in parliament through the May 2024 general elections, where it has had control since 1994.
Countries that are the recipients of sanctions have their trade restricted or stopped completely in an attempt to show the country’s discontent for not following international laws. The European Union (EU) is a political and economic community of 27 member states which are all located mainly in Europe. With the South Africans expecting the poll in May, we are already seeing an emergence of increasing misinformation about elections on social media. Currently, there are no sanctions on South Africa from the EU.
Fact-checking confirms fabrication
Artificial intelligence tools can imitate a person life and therefore, creates a content based on the personality of a famous person. AI tools focus on analysing a person’s voice, mouth and facial movements, available from published footage, such as TV interviews, and after that they can make a new video implying that the famous person is saying something absolutely different. This type of falsification is call deepfake.
Some telltale signs have been spotted in the Biden video as an AI-generated artifact such as the overall coarseness of the video. Biden’s lip movements look robotic as well, a clear indication that the video was created through artificial intelligence tools.
Using a Google image search, one can see that the AI-created screenshot from the video was replicated many times on different occasions. Some versions may portray the president as if they are speaking languages other than English. There were no media reports by credible media houses warning that sanctions against South Africa will be imposed on the basis of the 2024 election outcome. This is another indication of an issue since a statement like this would be the lead story across the world.
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