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. An 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)
