Fact Check: AI-generated video shared as original footage relating to the destruction of green cover near HCU
The Congress government in Telangana faced fierce opposition from the students, teachers, and environmentalists over its;
The Congress government in Telangana faced fierce opposition from the students, teachers, and environmentalists over its plan to auction 400 acres, having green cover, adjoining the Hyderabad Central University. Many students were arrested during the protests, and cases were registered. Telangana Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka directed the police to withdraw all the cases registered against University of Hyderabad students who participated in the agitation against the auction of the land.
Amidst all this, a video shows hundreds of excavators standing on an open ground; in the next frame, they are seen being driven into the deep forest with smoke coming out in several places. The next frame shows the JCB excavators driving in the middle of the forest and deer, elephants, and peacocks running in front of them. Some deer and peacocks fell on the ground. The students are seen protesting with banners “Stop the Land Grab,” etc, and police are stopping them. Finally, a “Greed Vs Green” text can be seen.
Here is the archive link to the claim.
Fact Check:
The claim is False. It is an AI-generated video.
When we extracted keyframes from the viral video and searched using Google reverse image search, we found a few social media posts sharing the same video with the caption “Save Nature. Preying on the wildlife and the only forest cover, home to thousands of animals, in the name of development needs to stop! This video is AI-generated, and it’s not real. #savehcu #savehcubiodiversity #hcu #saveanimal #saveland #hyderabad
When observed carefully, we found some discrepancies in the video. For example, the baton held by the police repeatedly shifts in dimensions. The hands and feet of the people seem to be changing with every passing second. The 'birds' in different timestamps are simple colored blotches that change shape and do not resemble any recognisable life form if you zoom in. The 'animals' are seen running, specially the deer. The orientation of their legs is not realistic.
We partnered with the Deepfakes Analysis Unit to analyse the video and confirm whether AI generated it. We selected distinctive visuals that have the most characteristic features as keyframes and analysed them. When we verified the extracted keyframes using Hive AI detection tool, it analyzed every frame and confirmed that they are AI generated. We can also see the sigmoid curves of varying colours corresponding to these variables. We found that the violet curve is most significant in the 10- to 20-second timestamp of the video.
"Pika" and "sora" have been found to have significant scores within this timestamp and beyond, implying that the tool considers these platforms to be the main source of these visuals. Here are the screenshots of the results.
When we checked the keyframes using AI detection Tool Was it AI, all the keyframes were found to be AI-generated. Here are the screenshots of the results.
Hence, the viral video is an AI generated video, does not show real visuals. The claim is false.