Deepfake

Does a real video or screenshot show President Donald Trump slumped over asleep at the White House Correspondents' Dinner with his mouth hanging open? No, that's not true: A deepfake video appears to be based on real footage from the dinner but has been altered to make Trump appear to fight sleep in an over-the-top, absurdist way. The video was…

Does a viral clip confirm that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy gave Monaco bombing suspect Anastasiia Berezovska a military award in 2022? No, that's not true: The rumor was based on a doctored clip. The real footage of the award ceremony didn't show people who looked like Berezovska. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X by @GarbageHuman24 on…

Have you seen viral videos showing large cruise ship disasters with the boats sinking dramatically into the water? Lead Stories has spotted a number of such videos recently and found that many of them were created using artificial intelligence. The videos have similar looking cruise ships sinking with various crowds watching as the ships go down. Some of these accounts…

Are social media posts claiming that Sarah Palin, Michelle Obama, or other celebrity women wore "probably the smallest bikini In the world" real? No, that's not true: The images used in the posts were created with artificial intelligence tools and distributed on a network of fake Facebook fan pages managed from North Macedonia. These clickbait posts link to blogs filled…

Are photos in a meme showing NBC's "Meet the Press" host Kristen Welker's dramatic expressions demonstrating "five stages of Trump Derangement Syndrome" real? No, that's not true: An AI content detection tool concluded the images of Welker's face while interviewing President Trump were likely AI-generated. A review of the interview video does show a range of expressions, but none matched…

Is the quote attributed to an unidentified Muslim man that says, "Christians, you're no longer allowed to say Merry Christmas, it's offensive to Muslims" real? No, that's not true: An AI detection tool concluded that a video of the man saying Christians are no longer allowed to say Merry Christmas because it is offensive to Muslims likely contained AI-generated content.…

Did the British Broadcasting Corp. publish a video report that French President Emmanuel Macron is deploying 800 French Foreign Legion soldiers to Armenia? No, that's not true: The British news channel did not report that Macron is running a personal security service for a panicked Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. There are no other reports from credible news organizations that…

Does a viral clip of a hailstorm actually show India under siege from massive chunks of hail? No, that's not true: Earlier versions of the claim said it happened in the capital of Bangladesh, Dhaka. Lead Stories found multiple inconsistencies in the video that strongly pointed to AI. The claim appeared in a post (archived here and here) published by…

Does a real video show an enormous whale breaching near the deck of a ship, swamping the crew with a giant wave? No, that's not true: This video is AI-generated and contains unrealistic glitches in the whale's anatomy, notably the area of ventral grooves on the whale's throat. The detection tool at Hive Moderation determined with 99.9% confidence that the…

Does a real video show a functioning prototype of a floating bicycle made from recycled plastic bottles? No, that's not true: This video is fake, with an AI detection tool determining with 98.3% confidence that the video was AI-generated. There are real functioning pedal powered boats, but they do not resemble this AI-generated fiction. The video appeared in a post…