Several videos featuring TV anchors promoting 'weight loss medicines' are going viral on social media.
These videos includes Rajat Sharma, the Editor-in-Chief of India TV News and Chitra Tripathi, an Editor at Aaj Tak. One of the videos contains a byte from Dr Naresh Trehan, chairman and MD of Medanta Hospital.
An archive can be seen here.
(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)
How did we find out the truth?: We performed a relevant keyword search to find such reports where these anchors, Sharma and Tripathi, are talking about such medicines but were unable to find any.
Tripathi's video: We checked Aaj Tak's official Facebook page which carried videos of Tripathi with the same attire and background set up.
Sharma's video: We looked for Sharma's video in the same attire on his official Instagram account shared on 21 July 2022.
In this video, Sharma addresses death threats that he had received and does not talk about any "weight loss medicines".
We also found the same video on India TV News' YouTube channel.
He has also shared a video on his Instagram on 19 November 2023 where he clarifies that a lot of deepfake videos of him talking about medicines and job opportunities are going viral.
Dr Trehan's video: A keyword search on YouTube directed us to a video of the doctor, where could be seen wearing a similar attire and sitting in the same setting.
The video was shared on an unverified YouTube channel named 'Vattikuti Foundation'.
It was uploaded on 13 February 2023 and was titled, "Humans of Robotic Surgery- Dr. Naresh Trehan/India's First Robot."
He could be heard talking about his journey about introducing the minimal invasive techniques during cardiac surgery.
We have also reached out to the journalists and the story would be updated once we receive a response.
Conclusion: Deepfake videos of journalists promoting 'weight loss medicines' are going viral on the internet as real.
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