Is a video of Joe Rogan asking "Why did every major phone company switch to non-removable batteries at the same time" authentic? No, that's not true: The viral TikTok video was generated using AI, according to online detection tools. It originated on a TikTok account that routinely uses Rogan's image and voice in various videos. A search of Joe Rogan's YouTube channel did not bring up a video mentioning the phrase "non-removable batteries."
The video was uploaded on TikTok (archived here) on February 11, 2025, by an account named "Jumpers Theories" with a caption that said:
Why did phones switch to non removable batteries 🤔 #ios #phones #alexa #batteries #fy #fyp #viral
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
@jumpers_theories Why did phones switch to non removable batteries 🤔 #ios #phones #alexa #batteries #fy #fyp #viral ♬ original sound - Jumpers Theories
The account in question posts videos expounding on various conspiracy theories, many of them opening with a shot of Joe Rogan:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Mon Feb 17 09:36:59 2025 UTC)
Lead Stories ran the first 20 seconds of the video through the AI detection tool at hivemoderation.com. The tool gave the video an aggregate score of 97.7 percent, concluding it was "likely to contain AI-generated or deepfake content":
(Source: screenshot of hivemoderation.com results obtained by Lead Stories on February 17, 2025 at 09:44:55 UTC)
The video also contained artifacts that point to the conclusion it was artificially generated, such as weird lettering typical of AI videos:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Mon Feb 17 09:18:17 2025 UTC)
Lead Stories ran a search for the phrase "non-removable batteries" on Joe Rogan's YouTube Channel (archived here) and only one result came up (archived here), an interview with Peter Attia, but the video in question did not contain the phrase, just the individual words at different places in the transcript.
