The period between April 1, 2025 to June 30, 2025 marked the fifth quarter of operations for the Deepfakes Analysis Unit (DAU). The audio and video content analysed by the DAU Secretariat during this time span primarily came from DAU's dedicated tipline. In addition, there were also some escalations from DAU's fact-checking partners in India and global fact-checking organisations that are IFCN signatories.
Here are some highlights from the content we analysed:
- Bulk of the content verified by the DAU in this quarter comprised A.I.-manipulated videos with a few deepfakes that surfaced during and after the India-Pakistan conflict that took place in May.
- Most of the A.I.-manipulated videos pertained to content peddling supposed "automatic" or "A.I.-powered" get-rich-quick financial platforms or schemes promising high returns on investment. This has been a continuing trend, which has been highlighted in the previous quarterly reports as well.
- The fabricated videos on the India-Pakistan conflict peddled narratives about defeat and loss. One such A.I.-manipulated video apparently showed that Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was admitting defeat against India.
- Three separate deepfake videos, apparently featuring Prime Minister Narendra Modi, External Affairs Minister Dr. S.Jaishankar, and Home Minister Amit Shah, respectively, were in circulation around the same time. Each of these videos were similar in packaging as well as messaging, through the audio tracks they conveyed that India was conceding to Pakistan.
- Another viral A.I.-manipulated video that the DAU debunked apparently featured Indian Army officer Col. Sofiya Qureshi, one of two female officers, who led the media briefing after India’s military attacked Pakistan. This fabricated video tried to invoke her faith using synthetic audio with original video footage from the media briefing.
- The manipulations in the financial scam videos involved replacing original audio tracks from authentic videos with A.I.-generated audios to make it appear that politicians, top business leaders, and celebrities were endorsing financial platforms or schemes when they were not. Most of these videos were packaged as interviews from news segments, they opened with visuals of popular television journalists.
- Among politicians, India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman was frequently linked to such scam videos. Anant Ambani from Reliance Industries and N.R. Narayana Murthy, co-founder of tech giant Infosys, were the most targeted business leaders. We also debunked one such video that apparently featured Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan.
- We spoke to experts to understand why most of the financial scam videos "recommended" an "initial investment" amount of 21,000 rupees.
You can read the full report here.
