AI-generated video falsely shows Ahmadullah criticizing Jamaat
A video of Shaykh Ahmadullah, one of Bangladesh’s Islamic speakers, was spread on Facebook, where he appears to deliver remarks criticizing Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami (a major Islamist political party in Bangladesh) and its student wing, Chhatra Shibir. However, Dismislab’s fact-check found that the video was made using artificial intelligence (AI).
The 20-second video was posted on a Facebook page named “AI Ayan09” . The caption read, “No atheist or hypocrite could damage Islam as much as Jamaat has.” The video shows Shaykh Ahmadullah speaking into a microphone on a lit stage. People seated in front are shown listening attentively and responding in unison in apparent agreement with his remarks.
As of this report’s publication, the video had been viewed more than 300,000 times, shared more than 5,000 times, and had received more than 12,000 reactions. While some users commented that the video was AI-generated, others wrote things such as, “You are 100 percent right,” “Thank you, Maulana, for speaking this truth,” and “The cleric is right,” among similar remarks.
A reverse search of several keyframes from the video led to other videos on a Facebook page named “Islamic Echo TV” (Islamic Echo TV), showing Ahmadullah wearing the same clothing and speaking in front of a microphone bearing the same name (1, 2, 3). However, he was not heard making the comments in question in any of those videos.
A review of the video found that the text on the blue nameplate in front of Shaykh Ahmadullah was not consistent. In one frame, the text before the mobile number begins with “Mobar,” but in another frame, after the shot changes, it becomes “Mob.” or “Mok.” The mobile number written on the nameplate also changed unnaturally across different frames of the same video. In addition, several people seated in the front row of the audience in the pavilion bore nearly identical facial features. These kinds of errors, distortions or inconsistencies are typically seen when images or videos are generated using artificial intelligence.
For further certainty, the video was tested using multiple AI-detection tools. An analysis using the AI content-detection tool Hive Detect found that 99.9 percent of the video’s visuals and 96 percent of its audio or speech were identified as AI-generated. In addition, testing the video using Google’s AI-detection tool SynthID also identified the presence of the “SynthID watermark,” or signs of AI generation, in both the audio and visual components of the video.
In other words, the video circulating with claims that Ahmadullah criticized Jamaat-e-Islami and Chhatra Shibir was made using artificial intelligence.
All social media captions, quotations, and news excerpts in this article have been translated into English from the languages in which they were originally posted or published.
