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AFP
27-05-2025
- Politics
- AFP
Video of Pope Leo XIV denouncing Vance is fake
"Vance, you say you hope Biden recovers soon, yet you attack him with such cold, calculated words. It's hard to believe someone like you is part of the US government," Pope Leo XIV appears to say in the clip, which was shared in a May 23, 2025 post on Instagram. "As an American-born pope, my heart is full of concern and sorrow," the audio continues. "Looking back at some of the policies Mr. Vance has put forward, it seems he's forgotten the most basic principle of human compassion, placing people in difficult and painful situations. This runs completely counter to the teachings we hold dear." Flashing between shots of the pope speaking and clips of Vance and Biden, the minute-long video goes on to feature what sounds like the pope's voice saying Vance should have offered Biden "sympathy and blessings" and must "let go of hostility and approach others with tolerance." Image Screenshot from Instagram taken May 27, 2025 The same video spread across Instagram and TikTok after Biden's office announced May 18 that he had been diagnosed with an "aggressive" form of prostate cancer which had reached his bones. The posts reference Vance's comments after Biden's diagnosis, which stoked allegations of a cover-up surrounding the Democrat's health. Speaking following a May 19 visit with Pope Leo, Vance wished Biden a recovery while also saying, "We really do need to be honest about whether the former president was capable of doing the job." he was chosen May 8 to lead the world's 1.4 billion Catholics, Pope Leo used a personal X account to opine on a range of hot-button issues. y included the amplification of articles criticizing Vance and US President Donald Trump, particularly on the topic of migration. In one instance, he reposted a headline and a link to an essay saying Vance was "wrong" to quote Catholic doctrine to support the administration's cancellation of foreign aid. But the video purporting to show blasting Vance over his reaction to Biden's cancer is fake. A TikTok watermark on the video reveals it was first posted to the platform May 20 alongside a label indicating it was AI-generated. AFP's analysis of the audio using the voice cloning detection tool in the Verification Plugin, also known as InVID-WeVerify, found it is likely AI-generated. Siwei Lyu, director of the University at Buffalo's Media Forensic Lab (archived here), said his own analysis of the audio likewise determined that it "has a high likelihood of being AI-generated, and produced using a text-to-speech or voice cloning model." "The tone is overly smooth and consistently calm, resembling scripted delivery typical of synthetic speech," Lyu told AFP in a May 24 "Also, which is another sign that it may be AI-generated," he added. Keyword searches for the returned no matching quotes in the Vatican's transcripts or in news articles. The footage of the pope appears to have been pulled from his May 10 remarks to cardinals -- delivered in Italian -- about why he chose papal name (archived here). He can be seen wearing the same and standing before the same background as in the deepfake shared online. AFP contacted the Vatican for comment, but no response was forthcoming. AFP has debunked other misinformation about the pope here.
Yahoo
19-02-2025
- Yahoo
AI-generated images of DeepSeek startup team circulate online
The two images of a group of people were shared in separate X posts on January 28 and February 2, alongside captions claiming they show the young DeepSeek team. "The average age of the Deepseek team is less than 35 years old. This group of young people has caused panic in the technology community in the United States," reads the simplified Chinese caption of one of the posts. DeepSeek's R1 chatbot stunned investors and industry insiders with its ability to match the functions of its Western competitors at a fraction of the cost, though a number of countries have questioned its storage of user data and have moved to ban it from government devices (archived link). Founded in May 2023, the firm is the brainchild of tech and business prodigy Liang Wenfeng, who was born in 1985 (archived link). In an interview with a Chinese tech media 36kr in May 2023, Liang said the core technical positions of the company "are essentially filled with freshmen and people who graduated a year or two ago" (archived link). The images were also viewed tens of thousands of times elsewhere on X and Facebook. However, they contain inconsistencies that indicate they were generated with AI tools. AFP ran the images through the Verification Plugin, also known as InVID-WeVerify tool, from AFP partner The tool can identify traces left by AI image generation software. The results indicate a 99 percent chance the first image was created with a faceswap algorithm, while it was 100 percent likely the second image was "manipulated through face swapping". The two images contained inconsistencies indicating they were AI-generated, said Shu Hu, director of the Purdue Machine Learning and Media Forensics (M2) Lab (archived link). He pointed out blurry ears and a lack of details in teeth and pupils in both images. Siwei Lyu, director of the University at Buffalo's Media Forensic Lab (UB MDFL) also pointed out a "noticeable colour difference" on one face, an unnaturally long neck and some identical eyes and mouths of the people in the images (archived link). "Everyone's smile in the images is unnaturally uniform, resembling the stereotypical smile learned by an AI model," Lyu told AFP. "Their teeth are showing [in the images] at nearly the same angle, which is unusual for real photos." In addition to the blurry rendering of ears, the second image also features irregular "text" on the uniforms, as well as an erroneous DeepSeek logo in the background. The company's genuine logo is a whale.
