On June 4, the day of counting for the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, a fabricated audio clip featuring Congress leader Rahul Gandhi swearing in as Prime Minister of India circulated widely on the internet. The clip was shared by Congress supporters along with music and a video montage showing Gandhi and scenes of the Red Fort in Delhi.
Users spread the clip with captions suggesting that Gandhi would become Prime Minister on June 4, the day of election result announcements. Fact-checker BOOM analysed the clip, using two AI detection tools to confirm its authenticity. The first tool, Itisaar from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Jodhpur, confirmed that the audio was AI-generated.
Further testing with another deepfake detection tool called contrails.ai also confirmed the audio was artificially created using AI voice cloning. According to contrails.ai, the technique used to create the audio was described as a “very cheap AI audio clone mixed with loud BG music”.
This incident is part of a larger trend of political deepfakes emerging during the ongoing Lok Sabha Elections 2024 in India. BOOM has previously fact-checked several manipulated videos featuring celebrities, falsely attributed with political messages. Recently, BOOM also debunked an AI-generated voice clip of Congress leader Kamal Nath, where he allegedly promised land to Muslims for mosque construction and the reinstatement of Article 370.
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