A video allegedly showing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his deputy, Chrystia Freeland, endorsing a “government-backed” investment project for citizens has emerged on social media.
In the video, Freeland is purportedly seen announcing in Parliament, “One of the key points of the 2024 Budget is a project for Canadian citizens where everyone can earn up to $5,000 a week…The video also features the Canadian PM reportedly stating, “This was the moment we launched the investment project at a national level, allowing you, our citizens, to earn from $600 a day…”
The above post can be seen here. (Archive)
FACT CHECK
Newsmobile fact-checked the video, and found it to be deepfake.
Searching with relevant keywords like “Justin Trudeau” and “investment project” on Google, the NM team could not find any credible results relating the announcement made by the Canadian prime minister.
Analysing the video keyframes through InVid tool, we detected a Facebook post by Justin Trudeau, dated March 28, 2023, with a description: “Today isn’t just any other day – it’s Budget Day! And that means we’ll be announcing new measures to support you and your family, and to keep growing our economy. Here’s a preview of what’s to come.”
The post included a video of Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland wearing the same attire and standing against an identical background as seen in the viral footage. However, in this video, neither Trudeau nor Freeland mentions anything about an investment project, suggesting that the footage of the Canadian PM may have been altered.
The Deepfakes Analysis Unit (DAU) of The Misinformation Combat Alliance (MCA) also found evidence of manipulation, with 100% confidence that the audio was AI-generated and 98% confidence indicating significant face manipulation.
Hive AI’s audio detector identified an overwhelming likelihood of AI manipulation in every segment of the video, with the “probability of real audio” being as low as 0.18%.
Thus, we can conclude that the viral video showing Canadian PM Trudeau endorsing an investment project is a deepfake.
