A TikTok video falsely depicting British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announcing a nationwide curfew was viewed more than 430,000 times before being removed from the platform. The 61-second video, one of thousands featuring Mr. Starmer posted in recent months, appeared to show him stating that no one would be permitted to leave their home after 11 p.m. without official authorization.
NewsGuard, a company that tracks online misinformation, identified over 6,000 such videos featuring Mr. Starmer between May and December. The company reported that the videos were posted by accounts with varying degrees of authenticity.
The video employed rapidly advancing artificial intelligence (AI) technology to mimic Mr. Starmer's voice, including his distinctive nasal lilt. This made the fake announcement sound eerily realistic, contributing to its rapid spread across social media platforms like X and Facebook.
TikTok, owned by a Chinese company, officially prohibits fake authoritative sources, crisis events, and the misrepresentation of public figures. While the platform removed the specific curfew video, the incident highlights the growing challenge of combating AI-generated misinformation. The relative ease with which convincing fake videos can be created and disseminated raises concerns about the potential for manipulation and the erosion of trust in online information.
Experts in the field of AI and media literacy emphasize the need for increased public awareness and the development of tools to detect and flag deepfakes. The incident underscores the importance of critical thinking and verifying information from multiple sources before accepting it as fact. The spread of the Starmer video demonstrates how quickly misinformation can gain traction, even when it is demonstrably false.
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