A fake video making the rounds on Facebook is claiming to show protesters demanding the resignation of Senate President Francis “Chiz” Escudero. The video was generated using artificial intelligence.
Published by a netizen on June 4, the 52-second video bore clips that showed clear visual discrepancies – a telltale sign that something was made with AI.
The clip also featured a synthetic voice narrator reading the following text:
“Filipino citizens are demanding the resignation of Senate President Francis ‘Chiz’ Escudero, alleging he deliberately stalled the impeachment proceedings against Vice President Sara Duterte. Accusations of political maneuvering and protecting powerful figures dominate the discourse, with critics pointing to procedural delays and a lack of transparency as evidence of Escudero’s alleged complicity. The public outcry highlights a growing distrust in the Senate’s ability to hold high-ranking officials accountable, further fueled by perceptions of partisan bias and a disregard for the people’s call for justice and transparency. This widespread dissatisfaction underscores the urgent need for accountability within the Philippine government.”
VERA Files Fact Check reached out to the Deepfakes Analysis Unit (DAU), which is part of the India-based Misinformation Combat Alliance, that verifies harmful or misleading audio and video content produced using AI.
The DAU told VERA Files: “The video is very apparent in the usage of AI behind its make. Every single hand is changing shape and the same goes for faces.”
Among the visual discrepancies observed by the DAU was that in this particular frame showing a man in a black cap and another man behind him in a black shirt, the men’s faces “[underwent] several changes in their facial structure in just a few seconds.”
Running this frame through AI-detection tools such as WasItAi Image Classifier and IsItAi Image Classifier also drew positive indications about the clips likely being made with AI.
Running a different frame of another scene through Hive drew a 98% confidence score that it was made with AI.
Noticeably, in this scene, the people in the crowd also seemingly had blobs for faces. “The faces lack distinctive features, and [are] too distorted, even for a supposed footage of low quality,” the DAU said.
Video peppered with more visual discrepancies
An expert from the DAU further flagged other specific portions of the video as being artificial.
In the image below, the man standing behind the lectern “does not look human,” said the DAU. It pointed out the figure’s enlarged head, stick-like figure and unnatural-looking hands.
And in this portion of the clip, the uniformed man disappeared for a moment, with only part of his feet still in frame.
“All these prove that this video is generated with the help of artificial intelligence,” said the DAU.
Meta’s AI info label
On the FB mobile app, the FB user’s video now bears an “AI info” label, after the publisher indicated that AI may have been used in its clips. However, other publishers continue to make it appear as if the protests were real. Apart from the video, a collage was made using the clip’s frames and was circulated by several netizens and FB pages.
The video surfaced a day after members of progressive groups marched to the Senate in Pasay City, calling for the impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte.
The AI-generated video and succeeding collages that circulated on FB have collectively garnered 2,906 reactions, 659 comments, 3,486 shares, and 274,000 views. Other copies of the photo collage have been shared on X and Threads.
