Several viral videos on Facebook are circulating a supposed government announcement that “preventive lockdown” is a safety measure against the alleged flu outbreak. These are fake and were generated using artificial intelligence.
The spurious videos were published as early as Oct. 19. One of the posts carried the caption:
“TEMPORARY LOCKDOWN ADVISORY. Ilan sa mga lugar ay isinailalim sa pansamantalang preventive lockdown bilang bahagi ng health and safety measures ngayong panahon ng trangkaso. Pinapaalalahanan ang lahat na manatiling mahinahon at sumunod sa mga patakaran ng inyong lokal na pamahalaan.
(Some places have been placed under temporary preventive lockdown as part of health and safety measures this flu season. Everyone should remain calm and follow the orders of your local governments).”
The short videos showed different newscasters reporting about a deadly virus that prompted the temporary lockdown and included a suspicious link to a website supposedly containing the list of places under quarantine.
These videos are AI-generated. The logo of Veo, Google’s video generation tool, can be seen on their bottom-right corner – a telltale sign that these are fake.
Last Oct. 17, Health Secretary Ted Herbosa clarified in a media interview that there is no need to declare a lockdown amid the ongoing flu season in the country.
In its official FB page, the DOH reported that the cases of influenza-like illnesses (ILI) decreased in the first two weeks of October.
“The DOH recorded 6,457 cases of ILIs in the country, from Sept. 28 to Oct. 11. This is 39% lower compared to the previously recorded 10,740 cases from Sept. 14 to 27,” it stated in Filipino.
Despite this, the DOH reminded the public to practice preventative measures — like washing hands, covering the mouth when sneezing and drinking medicine if they have symptoms — to avoid catching the disease.
These AI-generated videos came out after Japan declared a flu outbreak in their country following the report of over 6,000 cases of influenza.
FB pages PH News Today Updates (created on Aug. 8, 2018), Walang Pasok Advisory Updates (Oct. 14) and PH News Update Today (Sept. 11) published such videos, collectively garnering over 11,610 reactions, 660 comments, 6,160 shares and 738,000 views.
