It turns out that the video is not real and was generated by AI.
Release date:
A video has been shared on social media purporting to show an Indian national being detained in Tehran.
(Source:X/Modified Quint)
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AI-generated video incorrectly shows Indian detained in Tehran
A video of a man being detained by police officers and can be heard pleading for his release is the latest incident in Iran to go viral on social media platforms.
Claim: The video is being shared claiming it shows an Indian national being detained in Tehran on suspicion of espionage.
An archived version of this claim can be viewed here.
(Archived versions of other claims can be found here and here.)
Is it true?: No, this video was generated by AI and is not real footage of a man being detained by Iranian security forces.
How did we know the truth?: When I watched the video carefully, I noticed that the window frame of the car door that was visible in the first half of the video appeared to disappear in the second half.
The window frame is clearly visible in the first photo, but it appears to have disappeared in the second image.
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This error is typically seen with AI-generated content, so we sent the video to various AI-generated content detectors.
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When we ran this video through the DeepFake-O-Meter tool, we found that the viral clip was generated using AI.
DeepFake-O-Meter results are as follows:
(Source:DeepFake-O-Meter/Screenshot)
When we ran this video through Hive Moderation, another AI detection tool, we found that it was AI-generated 90.7% of the time.
Here are the results of Hive moderation:
(Source: Hive moderation/screenshot)
Conclusion: An AI-generated video is being shared with false claims that it is of an Indian citizen detained in Tehran.
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