After Zoran Mamdani’s election victory as mayor of New York, a protest video was shared on social media with the false claim that the Muslim community is demanding Arabic to be the official language of New York City.
BOOM tested the videos with multiple AI detection tools and was able to confirm that they were created with the help of artificial intelligence.
In a historic victory, Zoran Mamdani, son of Indian filmmaker Mira Nair and Mahmoud Mamdani, has been elected New York’s first Muslim mayor. Mamdani’s victory came after he campaigned for several social policies, including universal child care and free city buses, but faced deep funding from opposing US billionaires.
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The handle X shared a video with a caption in Hindi that means “As soon as New York elects a Muslim mayor.” English is not necessary. New York is now the Middle East. Arabic will be spoken here. “This is necessary for white people to come to their senses.”
(Hindi original: न्यूयार्क मे मुस्लिम मेयर बनते ही “हमें Login Add translation to English
Click here to see the post, click here to see the archive.
What we discovered: Viral videos are generated by AI
1. Inconsistency in the video: We performed a related keyword search and found no reliable coverage of the protests in New York demanding Arabic be made an official language. We then took a closer look at the clips and noticed some inconsistencies that are common in AI-generated content. For example, the hand holding the placard in the background appears distorted, and the Palestinian flag shown in the clip is different from the original Palestinian flag.
2. AI tools detect manipulation: For further verification, we checked the clips using the AI detection tool Hive Moderation. The tool showed there was a 99.9% chance that the video was AI-generated or a deepfake.
We also tested audio using the deepfake audio detector Hiya. The tool gave the audio an authenticity score of 19 out of 100, indicating that it was likely manipulated.
