In early July 2024, a fragment of an interview was dispersed on the Web, in which the actor allegedly criticized US President Joe Biden and declared his intention to vote in the upcoming Donald Trump elections. We checked whether this video is real.
As Telegram channels and users of social networks reported, in a recent interview, Smith allegedly said that President Biden did not keep his promise to “save the African American community from oppression and injustice” and in four years at his post did not help dark-skinned residents of the United States. A short video is given as evidence. “Smith accused Biden and Democrats of using Death of George Floyd In 2020, as a means to come to power at the expense of the votes of African American. The actor complained that Biden did not conduct the police reform promised by him, which would protect the African Americans from police officer, ” - It is said In posts. Also, from publications, Smith said that “tired of lies and unjustified hopes that the Democrats feed the Americans,” and therefore plans to vote for Trump in November.
According to the TGSTAT service, at the time of writing this analysis, about a hundred such posts were published in Telegram, which had a total of 2 million views. The most popular publications on this topic were the records of channels "Sanya in Florida"(441,000 views),"Russia now"(203,000),"Putin in Telegram"(178 000),"Observer"(145,000, the post is deleted),"Voblya • News"(133,000),"Mordor's voice"(125,000) and"Sheikh Tamir"(124 000). Similar posts are found on VKontakte (examples here And here). Video and Runet and for example, on the social network X, was twice shared by the English -speaking pro -Kremlin blogger Aussie Cossack (181 000 And 262 000 views).
On a distributed video lasting 1 min. 4 sec. Smith himself appears only at the very beginning for about three seconds, and then a video cut with his sunbathing voice is shown. On the record, the actor says:
“Since we have talked about politics, I would like to mention something else. In 2020, Biden promised to free the black community from oppression and social injustice. Four years passed, and he did nothing to fulfill this promise. You knew that [in the USA] in 2023 police Killed More than 1200 people (according to the report of the Mapping Police Violence project, about a quarter of the victims were dark -skinned. - Approx. Ed.)? Last year has become the most deadly over more than a decade for the number of murders committed by law enforcement officials. Despite the fact that Bidden controls everyone, despite his promises, dark -skinned people continue to suffer. Moreover, Biden used the death of George Floyd as a means of seizing power. Biden received the votes of blacks when he promised the defense and reform of the police. He forgot about the reform as soon as he took the oath, and did not remember this for four years. You know what, I'm already tired of the false promises that the Democrats feed us. That is why this year I vote for Donald Trump. You may not love him, you may hate his character, but at least he is honest and reinforces his words with deed. ”
None of the publications mentioned above indicate to whom the actor gave this, as claimed, a recent interview. The earliest Russian-speaking post with a viral roller “Checked” found in the pro-Kremlin Telegram channel “Mordor's voice", Where the video was posted on the day of July 4. Moreover, in the publications of this and many other channels there was a link to the English -speaking tweet With the same video that appeared on the social network X the night before. The post was published by the user @Provemewrong411, whose account was created in January 2023. According to Description profile, a girl named Anna adheres to a pro -Russian position: “The absolutist of freedom of speech, a defender The second amendments, a proud American, originally from Kyiv. I do not support Zelensky’s corruption and its illegitimate regime. ” In her fixed tweet It is said: "I am for Russia because I was born in Ukraine." In the refers under the post of Anna with a video that scored more than 118,000 views, one of the users wrote: “This is artificial intelligence. It cannot be that it was real. ” In response to the blogger said: "We can dream 🤣."
However, the primary source of the video was another account on the social network X. “Verified” found that the same video appeared On July 2 in the profile Hollywood News & Gossip (@hollywood_n_g; 199,000 views), whose description says: "Fresh news about films and celebrities!" According to the social network, the profile was registered back in July 2014, but at the time of writing this analysis, it published only 185 tweets. Moreover, 184 of them are reposts of other people's records made in early July 2024. In other words, The only one A full publication on the Hollywood News & Gossip account is a post with a video about Will Smith.
With the help of the opposite Search According to the screenshot from the viral video, it was “verified” that from the same angle, with the same microphone and against the same background, Smith recorded a series of podcasts Class of '88. The program in which the actor acted as a host is devoted to the history of hip-hop music (including Especially important For her 1988) and includes interviews with key representatives of the genre. In the clothes in which Smith is presented in the video distributed, the artist talked with the rapper Chuck D. The half -hour episode of the podcast I went out Back in February 2024, and in it the actor did not talk about disappointment in Bayden and the support of Trump. Moreover, several videos of the openings of that issue published at different times on YouTube channels and in social networks are available on the network Smith, Chuck D And the studio of the podcasts Wondry, - they also have no quotes from viral posts.
In the fragment posted on the actor’s channel, at the time mark 00:22 The movements of his hands and head coincide with the movements of the video distributed to Telegram. However, in the original, Smith discussed with the guest hip-hop, not politics.
Viral video Disassembled And a factor from the Logically Facts project. They noticed the inconsistencies between the movement of the lips of Smith and the words that the actor allegedly pronounces (this is especially noticeable on the word “politics”). Taking advantage of the tools HIVE AI And Deepfake Truemedia, our colleagues found that with a very high probability the video was falsified using JI-technologies. These conclusions were confirmed by experts from the project Deepfakes Analysis Unit and companies Loccus.ai.
Thus, the authors of the large pro-Kremlin Telegram channels distributed a fake video with Will Smith, created using neural networks. Thanks to artificial intelligence, the actor's voice was generated, and the original video sequence with his face, borrowed from the podcast about hip-hop, was changed. The primary source of the fake was the profile in the social network X, mimicing under the news account about stars.
Photo on the cover: screenshot video @Willsmith (YouTube)
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