As reported in Wednesday's edition of Truth of Fake, FRANCE 24 has been the victim of a deepfake. The video in question, which manipulates an extract from one of our French-language news bulletins by using artificial intelligence to simulate the presenter's voice, falsely claims that French President Emmanuel Macron postponed a trip to Ukraine over fears of a plot to assassinate him there. The video is still being spread on social media. Pro-Russian propaganda outlet Pravda.fr, which originally shared the deepfake, has responded to FRANCE 24's debunk, falsely insisting that the claim about Macron is true. The use of deepfake technology is becoming increasingly common, as FRANCE 24's Emerald Maxwell explains.
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Read moreFRANCE 24 journalist impersonated in new deepfake video
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Time now for our fact-checking segment, which means Semper Maxwell has sashayed into the studio for truth or fake. Great to see you.
00:07 Hi Mark.
00:07 You've told us about deep fakes of late, with a video that looked like an extract from one of our own news bulletins on the French side of things.
00:16 Our colleague Julie Anne LeFant, Julie being somewhat framed by whoever was using AI to dastardly means, supposedly reporting on an assassination plot on Emmanuel Macron.
00:28 Of course, though, it was fake, and you obviously disproved that in previous editions.
00:33 But since then, it continues, as things deal online, to go viral.
00:37 Yes, well, since yesterday when we debunked it, of course, this video continues to be spread on social media.
00:44 Here it is, been shared earlier today, tweeted earlier today.
00:48 And also, that pro-Russian propaganda outlet Pravda.fr, which I spoke about, which originally shared that video,
00:55 well, it has also responded to our debunk, it's sort of debunked our debunk.
01:00 And it has posted another article claiming that this supposed attempt by Keeve to assassinate Emmanuel Macron is not fake.
01:06 It says, "Journalists from France 24 described the plot as false and stressed they had never published such a video."
01:13 Before interviewing a supposed political expert who cast doubt on our assertion as well.
01:17 All in all, proving just how stubborn fake news and deep fakes can be to fact-checking, Mark.
01:22 So tell us again how this technology works, because what they did with Julian's performance, shall we say,
01:28 they made it look rather convincing, but there were things that gave away, weren't there, Emerald,
01:32 that it wasn't Julian saying the words that had been placed into his mouth using AI.
01:37 Yes, indeed. And here, like our colleague, Julien here, what Deepfake does is use artificial intelligence to imitate someone's voice or image,
01:46 making it possible to create a video or track or audio track of anyone to make them say anything at all.
01:51 The more footage of someone there is out there, the better the quality of the Deepfake will be, because it has more material to learn from.
01:58 Other recent examples include a Deepfake of Joe Biden's voice, which sounds very authentic.
02:05 Let's have a quick listen to it.
02:07 You know the value of voting Democratic on our votes count. It's important that you save your vote for the November election.
02:13 So this went viral just before the New Hampshire primary. In fact, as this tweet says, it was actually voters in Democrats in the New Hampshire primary were called,
02:25 got a robocall with this audio of Joe Biden, which discouraged them from taking part, from voting in the election.
02:32 And the scary thing is that this technology is only really just getting started.
02:36 It's improving at an alarming rate as a major election year gets underway, because, of course, 2024, half of the world's population goes to the polls.
02:45 And we're already seeing a lot of election interference using Deepfakes.
02:50 We're in the era of portal combat, as French intelligence have dubbed it.
02:55 Deepfakes, as you said, cropping up almost everywhere and recently used in the elections in Pakistan.
03:02 Tell us more on that.
03:03 Yes. Well, it was actually an election marred by Deepfakes.
03:07 Just the day before the January 8th parliamentary elections, a video went viral using the AI generated voice of former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan,
03:17 in which he seemed to be telling voters to boycott the election.
03:21 Subsequently, more such fake videos and audio clips of other people from his party also made their way onto social media,
03:27 all with the same message spreading a lot of confusion at crunch time in the election.
03:32 An already tense election, I should say.
03:35 But Pakistan is also an interesting example because AI technology was also used by Imran Khan himself.
03:43 And that was from behind bars, illustrating how this tool can be used not just for fake news, but also, you know, in a productive way.
03:51 His team released features by him that used artificial intelligence to replicate his voice in order to rally his supporters during the campaign.
03:58 Imran Khan also used AI to proclaim victory in the election, which after candidates affiliated with his party won the largest number of parliamentary seats.
04:08 So ahead of the Indian and Russian and US elections this year, I'd just like to say that we should really not take things at face value.
04:19 And if it seems doubtful, it's worth double checking because the Deepfake era is well and truly upon us, Mark.
04:25 OK, and we await the forthcoming response from Pravda to this truth or fake edition.
04:31 Emerald, thank you very much indeed for giving us the debunk on that.