Deepfake Viral as President, Sudha Murty, Fin Min Promoting Investment Platform
Two AI-generated content detection tools conclusively found that the video was manipulation using AI.
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A clip showing India Today anchor Rahul Kanwal speaking to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Infosys co-founder Sudha Murty, and President Droupadi Murmu is being shared on social media.
What is happening in the clip?: In the two-minute video, Kanwal discusses an investment platform with Murty, the finance minister, and President Murmu which "guarantees" a return of ₹70,000 on an investment of ₹21,000.
They talk about this alleged venture, brought by the State Bank of India and Reliance industries.
At the end of the video, President Murmu encourages people to click on the link provided to start investing.
But...?: The video is a deepfake, made using Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools.
How did we find out the truth?: At several points in the video, we noticed that their mouth movements did not match the words spoken in the clip.
Additionally, in some parts of the clip, the audio kept playing when none of the people were speaking.
Suspecting the use of AI in this clip's creation, we ran segments of the video through Hive Moderation's AI generated content detection tool.
1. Journalist and Nirmala Sitharaman: The first section of the clip, which shows Rahul Kanwal and Nirmala Sitharaman speaking, was found to "likely contain AI-generated content" at multiple points.
Hive Moderation tool gave these parts a 99 percent confidence score on the audio being AI-generated, and a 67 percent confidence score of the visuals being AI-generated.
It gave the clip a 99.8 aggregate score of being AI-generated.
(Source: Hive Moderation/Screenshot)
2. Sudha Murty: The second segment we submitted for analysis was the section containing Sudha Murty's support for the platform.
For this part of the clip, Hive Moderation showed 99.9 percent confidence for the clip being "likely to contain AI-generated or deepfake content," giving the audio a 99 percent score.
Their tool was fully confident about the visuals being generated using AI.
(Source: Hive Moderation/Screenshot)
3. President Droupadi Murmu: The last portion of the video shows President Murmu speaking about the platform and prompting viewers to click on the link shared with the video to "start receiving dividends today."
For this clip, the tool provided a low score, uncertain if the video was likely to contain AI-generated content.
Their tool provided scores for the video not containing AI-generated content.
(Source: Hive Moderation/Screenshot)
To verify the origins of this clip, we performed a reverse image search on the president's section of the video.
Nearly every result from credible sources, carrying the same visuals led us to news reports from 2023 (links here, here, here, and here.)
They said that it showed the President's address to the nation of the eve of India's Republic Day in 2023.
All credible reports were from 25 January 2023.
(Source: Economic Times/Altered by The Quint)
We then looked for the full video, which we found on the President of India's verified YouTube channel, uploaded on 25 January 2023.
Analysing the clip with Contrails.ai: We also shared the viral video with Bengaluru-based startup Contrails.ai, who also built a tool to analyse AI-generated content.
Their deepfake investigator detected manipulation in both elements of the video — audio and video — calling them fake.
Contrails.ai's investigation found that the video had been manipulated.
(Source: Contrails.ai/Screenshot)
In an expert's note in the report, Contrails.ai concluded that both elements had "clear signs of AI Manipulation."
It added that "LipSync technique" and "AI Voice clone" were used for each person in the video.
The link: The text at the bottom of the video reads 'deepflowster.com', which led us to a South African jewellery website.
When we entered to URL on a browser to check what 'deepflowster' offered, it showed us that the website was not active.
The website does not exist anymore.
(Source:deepflowster.com)
Conclusion: A deepfake video has gone viral to claim that Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, President Droupadi Murmu, and Sudha Murty promoted a new investment platform.
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