This Video Showing Robot Playing a Table Tennis Match With Human Is Altered
We found that the video has been digitally altered and does not show a real match between a human and a robot.
Fact-Check | The video has been edited to add the robot and does not show a real match.
(Photo: Altered by The Quint)
A video of a robot engaged in an intense table tennis rally with a human and eventually winning it is being widely shared on the internet.
Those sharing the video have said, "Imagine the robot loses one time and we end up living the real life terminator."
An archive of the post can be seen here.
At the time of writing this report, the video had recorded around 4 million views.
(Archives of similar claims can be found here, here, and here.)
What is the truth?: The video has been digitally altered to add the robot and it does not show an actual match between a human and robot.
The original video showed a match between Wang Yang and Pavel Sirucek during the last round of the stage one of the European Championships.
How did we find out?: We performed a keyword search on YouTube and found a video which had several similarities to the viral clip.
The video was titled, "The best table tennis shot of 2023."
It was uploaded on 28 March and was uploaded on an unverified channel named 'TableTennisDaily'.
We compared the viral clip with the one uploaded on YouTube and found that the former has been edited to add the robot.
The robot has been added in the place of the player dressed in red jersey.
(Swipe right to view all comparisons.)
A comparison clearly shows the similarities.
A comparison clearly shows the similarities
A comparison clearly shows the similarities
Other sources: We found a longer version of the video uploaded on a Facebook page called Slovak Table Tennis Association.
It was uploaded on 23 March. The video also showed a scorecard at the bottom of the video.
The caption of the post mentioned that the match was played between Wang Yang from Slovakia and Pavel Sirucek from Czech Republic.
Yang eventually won the match. It was a part of the qualification round for the European Team Championships.
According to European Table Tennis Union website, Yang competed against Siruchek and won the match by winning three consecutive games.
Conclusion: This video showing a human playing table tennis with a robot is digitally altered and does not show a real match as claimed.
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