Does a video on social media show podcaster Joe Rogan discussing the topic of rat meat supposedly in Chinese food, and how a person might find out about "how to heal the body from the toxins they feed us" in a podcast? No, that's not true: The deepfake detection platform TrueMedia.org determined with 100 percent confidence that the audio in this clip was AI generated. Social media channels promoting a book titled "Wonders of Healing" have produced many videos using clips of other celebrities with added AI voiceovers saying similar things.
The video was posted on Facebook on October 17, 2024, by the page DT Harmony Holistics (archived here). The post was captioned:
You've eaten rat meat before, including me...
#asianfood #toxic #chinesefood #exposed #rats #food #nasty #joerogan #joeroganpodcast
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Wed Oct 30 13:38:30 2024 UTC)
This video is being used to direct people to an online shop at the website harmonyholistic.shop (archived here). The scope of this fact check does not extend to the content of the book "Wonders of Healing," which says it discusses food and herbs purportedly approved by the controversial self-trained herbalist Alfredo Bowman, known as Dr. Sebi.
The 35-second-long video features clips of Rogan wearing a white pullover hoodie speaking at his podcast mic. Additional footage shows a group of rats being fed, and Chinese food being prepared. In the falsified audio track, an AI-generated voice resembling Rogan's says:
You know that Chinese chicken isn't actually chicken, right? It's actually rat meat you're eating and you can look this up for yourself. You'll see many videos of these Godzilla-sized rats, like these 20-, 25-pound rats and its just absolutely nasty. And these rats are ... are grinded up with chicken which is why it's so cheap. And they try to hide 'The Wonders of Healing' because it taught how to heal the body from the toxins they feed us and there are a few remaining copies left, and I left it in the link in the comments -- hurry before it's too late.
Lead Stories queried the AI detection tools at TrueMedia.org by entering the Facebook reel link. The analysis returned a finding of "Substantial Evidence of Manipulation" and one tool in particular, the AI-Generated Audio Detector, returned a reading of 100 percent confidence that the audio was AI generated. See the full TrueMedia analysis report here.
(Source: TrueMedia.org screenshot taken on Wed Oct 30 16:07:01 2024 UTC)
Another Facebook Reel (pictured below left) posted by the page DT Harmony on September 29, 2024, features a clip of psychologist Jordan Peterson wearing a distinctive jacket with black lapels. In this reel a fake Peterson voiceover script about rat meat supposedly in Chinese food is nearly identical to the script used for the fake Rogan voice video.
(Source: Lead Stories composite image with Facebook and YouTube screenshots taken on Wed Oct 30 17:15:34 2024 UTC)
The clip of Peterson originated from episode #2180 (pictured above right) of the "Joe Rogan Experience," an episode where Rogan is wearing the white pullover hoodie seen in the other altered video. Lead Stories searched the entire YouTube transcript of the original two-hour-36-minute-long podcast episode and neither Rogan or Peterson ever said the word rat or rats.
Lead Stories has debunked a different claim featuring this clip of Peterson that was also altered with an AI-generated voiceover.
Additional Lead Stories fact checks based on health claims and marketing schemes citing the late herbalist Alfredo Bowman (Dr. Sebi) can be found here.
