A Filipino-owned Facebook page shared a video of a supposed news anchor saying that “Iran has officially surrendered to Israel” amid the intense conflict between the two countries. The video includes a clip of a huge crowd asking Israel for peace. The video is fake and was generated using artificial intelligence.
In the 14-second clip posted on June 23, the news anchor said:
“Iran has officially surrendered to Israel. A path to peace may finally be in sight between the two nations.”
From the 0:07 to 0:14 mark of the video, a sea of people, some waving Iran’s flag, could be heard saying:
“Israel, we want peace, please. We are sorry.”
It also carried a superimposed text that read:
“Iran has officially surrender (sic) to Israel
Basic win Israel/america”
This is fake. There are no credible news reports on Iran’s supposed surrender to Israel. The visuals and audio in the video are highly likely to have been generated using AI.
VERA Files Fact Check ran the viral video through the AI-detection tool Hive Moderation
and the results indicated that it is 99.8% likely to contain AI-generated or deepfake content.
The reporter’s mouth movements do not match what he is supposedly saying in the fake video, a telltale signs of AI use in media content.
A reverse image search showed that a YouTube channel @sarahvlog6156 published the same video on June 23, with a caption that stated: “FAKE NEWS IRAN VS. ISRAEL.”
Another YouTube channel @entity_unknown_ had published a screen recording of the same video on June 24, which carried the caption: “Iran surrenders to Israel iran stop the war we want peace total surrender.” It also bore an “altered or synthetic content” label, noting that the sound or visuals of the video “were significantly edited or digitally generated.”
The screen recording shows that the original video was from a TikTok user @guuuurlmaga, who placed an “Ai VIDEOS” label on the lower left corner. After browsing a TikTok account with the same username, the AI-generated video can no longer be found.
A keyword search on Google also yielded no credible or verified news reports on this. . Earlier, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rejected calls for surrender from the United States, according to a June 19 report published by the Associated Press.
The AI-generated video emerged on the same day that Iran attacked a US military base in Qatar on June 23 in retaliation for American strikes against its nuclear sites.
Published by FB page JuLybuddy (created on Oct. 8, 2024), the fake video has so far garnered 28,000 reactions, 1,400 comments, 4,100 shares, and two million views.
