viral video Shared by X Bashar al-Assad has reportedly announced that he will resign as President of Syria.

amazing…. pic.twitter.com/zTLJFybRHQ

— Naguib Sawiris (@NaguibSawiris) December 8, 2024

Verdict: False

That claim is false. A content detection scan using the website ‘TrueMedia.org’ shows that the audio was generated by artificial intelligence (AI). Additionally, media forensics and AI experts told Check Your Fact via email that creating audio tracks using AI is easy.

Fact check:

Russian official Sergei Ryabkov confirmed that al-Assad is in Russia. NBC News. President al-Assad resigned as Syria’s leader and headed to Damascus before leaving the country after Islamic militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and a “coalition of rebels” seized Aleppo. BBC News Reported.

The video, which has been viewed more than 1 million times at the time of writing, is said to be in which al-Assad announces his resignation as president of Syria. The video’s caption reads, “No comment…”

That claim is false. a Content detection scan TrueMedia.org uses its website to point out that the video contains “significant evidence of manipulation” because the audio was generated by AI.

Similarly, we found “Check the facts” There are no reliable reports to support the claim. In fact, the opposite is true. December 12th, Misbar It debunked this claim and also reported that the video had been manipulated using AI. The outlet tracked: original video Uploaded to YouTube and uploaded in September 2023.

Ann english translation The video’s caption says it was created using AI for entertainment purposes. “#Urgent #Syria #What would happen if Bashar Al Assad apologized and came back? This story is not true and is for entertainment purposes only. It was created by artificial intelligence,” the caption reads.

Furthermore, Mr. Misbah December 5th Al Jazeera article Syria’s Ministry of Information is aware of the existence of the fake video and said it was generated by AI. (Related: No, the image does not show Assad in Moscow)

Additionally, Dr. Walter Shirer, a media forensics and AI expert at the University of Notre Dame, told Check Your Fact via email that creating audio tracks using AI is easy.

“Such resignations have not been reported in any major news organization. The ability to create audio tracks like this is easily created using generative AI algorithms,” Shirer said.