Images of Manipur Protests are Ai generated. Here's the reality
Manipur has been rocked once again with the recent incidents of violence in the form of drone and rocket attacks, killing several people and security forces. In its aftermath, the government has suspended the internet services and shut the colleges to ensure public safety.The fresh violence has sparked a wave of misinformation on social media platforms.
Recently, we came across a video showing thousands of people have taken to the streets doing rounds on social media platform X(formerly Twitter). The video has been shared by several users including a pak-based handle.
Psywar Bureau, better known for spreading misinformation against India, posted this video and wrote: “The situation in Manipur has significantly worsened, with no coverage from Indỉạn media. Frustration is mounting, as thousands of people have taken to the streets demanding frẹẹdom from Indỉạ”
Subsequently, an account named Dhruv Rathee satire wrote: “Why is this voice of Manipur not reaching the ears of Modi government or does it not want to listen to it”
Additionally, several users shared this video and made similar claims. The link can be viewed here and here
Fact-check
To check the authenticity of the above viral video, the DFRAC team converted it into some keyframes and reverse-searched them on Google. We found a video on the Instagram handle of a user with the caption: “MANIPUR WANTS PEACE. All images are AI Generated”. The video was posted on feb 1. Moreover, as per insta’s bio, the user is a digital creator.
In addition,we discovered that the user frequently post ai generated stuff.
For further investigation, we examined the screengrabs from the above viral video using Ai-image detectors such as hive moderation and hugging face. Both detectors certified them as AI-generated.
Conclusion
It is clear from DFRAC’s fact-check that the above viral video has been digitally edited, not a real one. The images shown in the viral video are AI-generated.
Analysis: Ai-generated
