A viral video purportedly showing Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announcing cancellation of Pakistani visas has been altered using artificial intelligence.
BOOM found the visuals of Albanese addressing the media are from a 2022 press conference on climate change legislation. Tests on multiple AI detection tools flagged the voice as modified using AI.
Sajid Akram (50) and his son Naveed (24) opened fire at a gathering in a Jewish festival near Bondi beach in Australia on December 14, killing 15. At least 24 were injured and are undergoing treatment. While Sajid was shot dead by the police, Naveed is critically injured. According to a report, Indian authorities visited Sajid's family in Hyderabad where his brother lives to collect details. Meanwhile, BBC News reported that Sajid had traveled to Philippines a month before on an Indian passport and his son, Naveed, using an Australian passport quoting border authorities in Manila.
The Claim
The viral video was posted on an X account @mktyaggi with the caption, "The Prime Minister of Australia has decided to cancel the visas of all Pakistanis following an attack by a Pakistani Islamic terrorist. The entire world is troubled by this nation, and in India, it is said that Abdul cannot buy a house in the Hindus' neighborhood." (Translated from Hindi)
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What We Found
1. Original Footage: BOOM ran related keyword searches but did not find any credible news report corroborating the viral claim. We then ran a reverse image search on one of the keyframes of the viral clip which led us to an article published on Australian media outlet Brisbane Times from August 4, 2022. According to the article, the photograph was taken during a press conference on a climate change bill on August 3, 2022 at the Parliament House in Canberra.
We then found a live stream of the press conference from August 3, 2022 on ABC News (Australia) with the same visuals. In the presser, Albanese and Australian Climate and Energy minister Chris Bowen can be heard speaking together about the Australian government's plan to pass a climate bill to reduce emission by 2030. This predates the Bondi attack.
The transcript of the presser can be read here.
2. Test on AI Detection Tools: For further verification, we extracted the audio from the clip and tested it on Hiya Deepfake Voice Detector. Hiya flagged the voice as a deepfake.
We also ran the video through multiple parameters on Deepfake-o-meter, the AI detection tool developed by the Media Forensics Lab of University at Buffalo, New York. The test found significant evidence of AI manipulation, especially the lip-syncing detection tools.
