Did U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez say that a ceasefire is when "somebody sees a fire"? No, that's not true: This is a deepfake video originating from a meme account that identified it as such with a "deepfake" hashtag. The voice track that mimics the voice of Ocasio-Cortez was added over a video clip taken from a livestream posted by the New York congresswoman. In the actual livestream, the congressperson discussed the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, human rights, war crimes and the ceasefire during which hostages were exchanged.
The satirical deepfake video originated from an Instagram meme page @c3pmeme, where it was posted with a C3PMEME watermark and a #deepfake hashtag on November 17, 2023. The video has been reposted by several other accounts such as @mithathasaballa, where it was published on November 18, 2023 (archived here), without the #deepfake hashtag. Text added to the video reads:
Does anyone know what she is saying 🤪🤪🤪🤪🤪🤪🤪idiot
This is how the post appeared at the time of writing:
(Image source: Instagram screenshot taken on Mon Nov 27 14:16:35 2023 UTC)
The deepfake voice track added to this twenty second long video clip sounds like the voice of Ocasio-Cortez, making her appear to explain a ceasefire this way:
Sees fire? Means that somebody sees a fire. It could be any kind of fire. It could be a big fire or a small fire, a bonfire or even a candle flame. It just matters that somebody sees a fire. That's why we call it a sees fire.
Although the audio is fake, this video footage is real and was originally streamed live on the congresswoman's instagram account @aoc on October 22, 2023 ,and republished on her YouTube channel the next day. The livestream is just over a half hour long and was on the topic of a ceasefire, war crimes, human rights, the blockade, and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. This post was captioned with a hashtag:
Updates on #CeasefireNOW
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Other Lead Stories fact checks about the Hamas-Israel conflict can be found here.
