In November 2025, a video allegedly filmed in Rio de Janeiro went viral on the Internet, where during protests a woman got into an altercation with a police officer, who smiled and used a pepper spray. We have verified the authenticity of this video.
In the Telegram channel Win/Win (154,000 views at the time of writing this analysis) the video was commented on as follows: “How to fight the “orange revolutions”? Orange. (Rio de Janeiro following the war in the favelas).” According to the authors of the channel “Dmitry Vasilets”(101,000 views), this entry clearly demonstrates “why there will be no Euromaidan in Brazil,” and in the channel “Uncle Slava"(179,000) it was called an instruction for fighting mother's revolutionaries. The video was also published on "Peekaboo"and in Instagram*, where one of posts received more than 3 million views. In addition, the video went viral in the English-speaking segment X and in TikTok. Similar publications are available on Italian And Spanish languages.
Late October 2025 in the northern suburbs of Rio de Janeiro passed police operation "Containment" against the criminal group "Red Command", which specializes drug trafficking, and also smuggles weapons, gold, fuel, alcohol and tobacco. Authorities sent about 2,500 law enforcement officers to areas where the gang operates. It is reported that during the operation, which lasted more than a day in the favelas, died at least 132 people (including four police officers), more than 130 were arrested.
According to local residents, dozens of civilians who had no connection with the group came under fire. Families of the victims condemned the actions of the police, accusing them of extrajudicial killings. Mourners left the bodies of the victims in one of the squares in the area where the clashes took place. Governor of the State of Rio de Janeiro Claudio Castro named this is manipulation: according to him, some recordings show people cutting off camouflage clothing from the dead. Police representatives made similar statements. In turn, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights stated, which was horrified by the actions of the Brazilian police and called for a quick and effective investigation. Soon after the end of the operation, a wave of protests swept across the country: at first relatives and friends of those killed came out to the state government building, who also blocked streets, then protests against police violence passed in other cities of the country.
As for the viral video, it is unlikely that it was filmed at such a demonstration - everything indicates that it was generated by a neural network. Firstly, none of the publications found by “Verified” contain information about when and in what area of Rio de Janeiro the alleged incident occurred. Secondly, in the video you can notice distortions and artifacts characteristic of videos that were created by AI. For example, when the woman bends over, police shields can be seen standing on their own behind her, and the figures of some people in the background appear deformed. Finally, we analyzed the viral video and its screenshots using two AI detectors (Hive, AI or Not), according to which the record was most likely generated by a neural network.
Fact checkers from the American project Lead Stories lead additional argument: according to them, the original entry appeared on Instagram on the sorareelss page, which posts videos created by OpenAI's Sora 2 model. The same source is indicated in the notes Community Notes in X. On the sorareelss page, the viral video was published on October 31 at 13:54 Moscow time. At the same time, at the bottom of the video there is a watermark with the name of the account, and in many other versions there are no signs of its removal or covering up. In addition, sorareelss's video is only 10 seconds long, while other accounts present a 14-second version.
"Verified" found an earlier one fast with a 14-second video without a watermark on the fofoch.so Instagram page. He appeared there on October 31 at 02:57, and since then the video has received 4.8 million views. However, we are not sure that fofoch.so is the original source, since this profile looks like an aggregator of other people’s materials.
Back in early October on social networks one could meet similar video, in which protesters shout at soldiers and police, after which they spray gas from canisters in their faces. These videos were also generated AI.
Probably, the reason for creating such videos was a real incident in Portland, America. On October 2, during protests against the actions of the deportation police, a law enforcement officer sprayed gas in the face of one of the demonstrators. Local media at the same time reportedthat the girl was noisy, but not aggressive.
So the viral video of a Brazilian police officer pepper-spraying a screaming protester in the face was created using AI rather than filmed on the streets of Rio de Janeiro.
*Russian authorities think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social network Instagram, is an extremist organization; its activities and symbols are prohibited in Russia.
Cover photo: social networks
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