Does a video being spread on social media show a real sinkhole that opened up in Paris? No, that's not true: The video originated on the Instagram account of an "AI video expert" and several details in the video reveal it is not real. A detection tool also said the video was AI generated.
The video originally appeared in an Instagram post (archived here) published on February 10, 2025. It was captioned:
Huge sinkhole appears in Paris. Do you think this could happen? #sinkhole #sinkholes #parisfrance
This is what the a still from the video looked like:
(Source: screenshot taken on February 12, 2025 at 23:26:00 UTC)
(Click on the embedded post to start the video)
The Instagram account that published the video, @endlessstoriespictures, had a bio that read:
Digital creator
The truth is stranger than fiction.
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The Instagram bio linked to https://linktr.ee/endlessstories (archived here), which had a description that read:
The truth is stranger than fiction. AI video expert.
The video contained several artifacts that point to the conclusion it was artificially generated: normal sinkholes don't have neat curbstones around them, people in the background were vanishing into thin air and some police vans were seemingly blended together.
(Source: collage of screenshots created by Lead Stories on February 12, 2025 at 23:30:46 UTC)
Lead Stories ran a downloaded copy of the video through an AI detection tool at hivemoderation.com. The tool gave it an aggregate score of 55% and concluded it was "likely to contain AI-generated or deepfake content":
(Source: screenshot of Hive Moderation result taken on February 12, 2025 at 23:34:36 UTC)
