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Claim: A viral video circulating on WhatsApp claimed that the US President, Joe Biden, recites Arabic prayer @ 82. Saying “VICTORY TO ISLAM ALLAHU AKBARR.”
Verdict: Misleading! A check by DUBAWA revealed that the video is a deep fake generated using artificial intelligence.
Full Text
Millions of people subscribe to religion, and their holy books are usually regarded as impactful. Recently, there has been a video circulating WhatsApp showing the United States President Joe Biden allegedly reciting an Arabic dua (prayer) with the phrase “victory to Islam.”
This claim has been shared multiple times on WhatsApp, and its virality has prompted us to fact-check it.
Verification
DUBAWA scrutinised the footage using WeVerify, an AI forensic tool that split the video into keyframes and conducted an image reverse search. The results showed that the video may have been fabricated, leading us to a video we believe was the original.
In the clip, Biden was seen wearing the same suit, the same design, the same colour tie, and the same camera view. It was a video interview titled “President Joe Biden: The 2023 60 Minutes Interview,” where President Biden answered questions on Israel, efforts to locate American hostages in Gaza, the state of the war in Ukraine, and more during a wide-ranging conversation with Scott Pelley, Biden did not speak in Arabic language throughout the interview.
In addition, DUBAWA put the viral video against some verified videos, as seen here, here, and here, of the president and conducted a comparative study. Discrepancies were observed in the video under examination: the absence of visible teeth and clear eyeballs, asynchronous lip movements and audio, consistent eye blinking intervals, abrupt facial movements unlike natural human gestures, deliberately blurry footage, lack of body movement, obscured hair, and the absence of Biden’s characteristic hand gestures during speech. These anomalies are common red flags in deep fake detection.
Lastly, we conducted keyword searches and looked into international news outlets, including the BBC, CNN, and Al Jazeera. However, we found no report claiming that Biden had recited the prayer.
Conclusion
DUBAWA’s investigation reveals that the video is a deep fake. It is fabricated to mislead viewers.
The researcher produced this fact-check per the DUBAWA 2024 Kwame KariKari Fellowship, in partnership with Nigeria Police Radio 99.1 Fm Abuja, to facilitate the ethos of “ truth” in journalism and enhance media literacy in the country.
