Altered Video Shared as Shashi Tharoor Comparing India & Pakistan’s Diplomacy

The audio shared in the claim is AI-generated and there is no evidence of Tharoor making such a statement.

An AI-manipulated video is being shared to falsely claim that Congress MP Shashi Tharoor compared India's and Pakistan's diplomacy, criticising the former during Iran-US negotiations.

(Source: X/Altered by The Quint)

A video showing Congress MP Shashi Tharoor speaking the to press at an event is being widely shared on social media.

What does he say?: In the video, Tharoor can be heard talking about the "colonisation of India," saying that Indian diplomacy was now being colonised at the hands of Pakistan.

"I mean, it is such a sad spectacle to see Steve Witkoff and JD Vance right there in Islamabad, while they could have stopped by India for a cup of tea. I believe that it's a huge diplomatic failure, there is no other justification, and what India is suffering right now is complete colonisation. It is no different than what the British did to us. Pakistan has done to same to India in terms of diplomacy and diplomatic posture. I feel lost and sad. I am overwhelmed and unable to fully express my true feelings right now," he reportedly said.

An archived version of this post can be seen here.

(Source: X/Screenshot)

(Archived versions of more posts sharing this claim can be seen here and here.)

Is it true?: No, the video was manipulated using AI.

How did we find out the truth?: We ran a reverse image search on the video, which led us to an X post by news agency ANI, shared on 11 April.

• Responding to a question about Pakistan mediating Iran-US negotiations, he spoke about Washington writing statements on behalf of Pakistan's prime minister, noting that the language used was similar to that of the US and its President Donald Trump, and Pakistan's relations with Iran.

• He did not mention Witkoff, Vance, diplomacy or diplomatic failure, or make the statement mentioned in the claim.

• Since the video did not carry any of the things mentioned in the claim, we ran it through AI-generated content detection tools.

• Hiya's Deepfake detection tool gave the audio an authenticity score of two out of 100, noting that the sampled voice was likely a deepfake.

The audio track was found to be a deepfake.

(Source: Hiya/Screenshot)

Similarly, Hive Moderation's tool said that the audio was 98.3 percent likely to be AI-generated or deepfake content.

The audio is a deepfake.

(Source: Hive Moderation/Screenshot)

Conclusion: An AI-manipulated video of Congress MP Shashi Tharoor is being shared to falsely claim that he compared India's and Pakistan's diplomacy, criticising the former.

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