Does real security camera footage capture the moment a large bull shark made a splash in a Cape Coral canal as a pet dog barked? No, that's not true: This video appeared on Instagram with an AI label applied by Meta, and on TikTok and Facebook the video was labeled with an AI disclaimer by the content creator. The Hive Moderation AI-Generated Content Detection Tool rated the video 85.4% likely to be AI-generated, while Sightengine found it was 88% likely to be AI-generated.
The video appeared in a post (archived here) by the @the.abyss.archives account on Instagram on Oct. 12, 2026. It read:
Cape Coral has 400 miles of canals--more than Venice, more than any city on Earth--and they all open to the river and the Gulf.
Bull sharks are the one shark that lives in fresh water, and they're in these canals every summer. The dock is 20 feet. Watch the seawall at 0:04, then watch the canal at 0:19.
Would you let your kids off that dock?#abyssarchives #capecoral #bullshark #floridacanals #sharks
The video was uploaded to TikTok (archived here) by the @the.abyss.archives account on Oct. 13, 2026, with the same caption. This is what a screenshot of the video in the post looked like at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @the.abyss.archives on TikTok.)
The video has a digital text overlay which mimics the time and date stamp characteristic of security camera footage, but in the lower left corner is an uncharacteristic detail -- the channel's social media handle. The text reads:
File 26-10-12-A 10-11-2026 02:14:11
Cape Coral, FL Dock Cam
26°34'N 81°57'W
The Abyss Archives
Cape Coral does have over 400 miles of canals (archived here) but not all are open to the Caloosahatchee River or open water, some of the canals are freshwater and do not connect. It is not uncommon for bull sharks to be found in Cape Coral as they live in coastal sea water and can survive in brackish water of those canals which connect to open water. A July 11, 2024, news video (archived here) from Gulf Coast News contains a video report about a family from Ohio who caught and released four bull sharks from a Cape Coral dock. The report contains photos of the real sharks that appeared much smaller than the shark in the fake video.
The TikTok video has a "Creator labeled as AI-generated" disclaimer. On Instagram the viewer needs to select "about this reel" from the ⋯ menu to see the Meta-applied "AI Content" label. The same video (archived here) was published on Oct. 12, 2026, on Facebook with an "AI content" label applied by The Abyss Archives (embedded below).
Lead Stories uploaded an eight-second clip of the video to Hive Moderation (archived here). The AI-Generated Content Detection Tool determined the clip had an 85.4% likelihood of being AI-generated (pictured below).
(Image source: Hive Moderation.)
Lead Stories also uploaded the clip to Sightengine (archived here) where the AI-Generated Image Detection Model determined the clip was 88% likely to be AI-generated (pictured below).
(Image source: Sightengine.)
