Several edited Facebook videos of popular TV news anchors are viral online with the false claim that they were recently seen promoting a medication for diabetes.
BOOM found that all of the videos have been edited, with the overlaid audio of the anchors speaking, most likely created with generative AI.
The videos show anchors like Ravish Kumar, Arnab Goswami, Anjana Om Kashyap, and Sudhir Chaudhary promoting the medication. They are seen making statements such as, "An Indian doctor has developed a medicine that normalises blood sugar in a single dose. The doctor believes in the medication so much that they have assured to pay Rs 100 million if it does not work. Click on the link below for more; this offer ends today."
A user on Facebook shared a video of Ravish Kumar making the claim with the caption, "Important information for diabetes patients in India."
(Original text in Hindi: "भारत से मधुमेह रोगियों के लिए अत्यावश्यक सूचना")
A similar video of Aaj Tak's Anjana Om Kashyap making the claim can be seen here and here.
Screenshots of Aaj Tak anchor Sudhir Chaudhary and Republic TV's Arnab Goswami making similar claims were also found. Apart from these screenshots, a separate video of Sudhir Chaudhary making the claims about the medicine can also be seen here.
FACT CHECK
BOOM found that the claims are false and the videos have been overlaid with a fake voiceover of the anchors.
We watched the videos closely and found that the lip movements of the anchors did not match the audio of the clips.
We first examined the video of Ravish Kumar and found that he had uploaded a video on YouTube on October 15, 2023, that bore a close resemblance to the viral video. We watched the entire video and found that it covered news reports about Gautam Adani. Nowhere in the video did Kumar mention a medication for diabetes.
Kumar's hand movements in this video were an exact match to the viral video, however, the audio in the two clips is completely different. Below is a comparison between the viral video and the original video.
BOOM also reached out to Ravish Kumar regarding the viral video, who rubbished the viral claim and said, "This is fake, I have not made any such ad."
It is possible that Ravish Kumar's voice has been used in the viral video by cloning it with the help of AI tools.
After this, we examined the video of Anjana Om Kashyap and Sudhir Chaudhary and found that their lip movement too, did not match the audio of the clips.
BOOM was unable to independently verify the source of Om Kashyap and Chaudhary's videos. We reached out to the anchors regarding this; the story will be updated when they respond.
After this, we extracted the audio of Ravish Kumar, Anjana Om Kashyap and Sudhir Chaudhary from viral videos and ran them through an AI Voice Detector tool that detects audio generated by AI tools. According to this, 77% of the audio used in Ravish Kumar's viral video has been created with the help of AI tools. At the same time, 60% of Anjana Om Kashyap's voice and 41% of Sudhir Chaudhary's voice have been created with the help of an AI tool.
Finally, we investigated the screenshot of Arnab Goswami but did not find any video of him in which he is seen promoting a diabetes medicine.
BOOM has earlier fact-checked similar edited advertisements containing Sadhguru's fake voice, created with the help of AI tools.