DHAKA – An AI-generated video featuring The Daily Star Editor Mahfuz Anam has gone viral on social media, falsely claiming that he told India Today that India’s intelligence agency, RAW, is blocking Bangladesh from joining the “Makkah Pact”.
The clip also claims that India is building a new defence alliance with Israel and another Middle Eastern country.
According to a fact-check by the Rumor Scanner team, the claims are completely false.
Mahfuz Anam never made the statements shown in the video, the fact-checking organisation said.
The Rumor Scanner team found that the video used footage from a genuine interview Mahfuz Anam gave to India Today after the August 5, 2024 mass uprising, but the original audio had been replaced with AI-generated audio.
The original 14-minute interview was published on India Today’s YouTube channel on August 8, 2024. It contained no discussion of RAW, the “Makkah Pact” or a new military alliance with Israel, according to the fact-checker. Instead, Mahfuz Anam discussed Bangladesh’s political and security situation following the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government.
The fact-checker also found signs of manipulation in the video, including a mismatch between Mahfuz Anam’s lip movements and the audio. His voice also sounded unnatural and robotic, it said.
The audio was tested using Hive Detect, an AI detection tool, which showed a 99 percent probability that the voice was AI-generated, according to the Rumor Scanner report.
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