This Video of H Vasanthakumar Campaiging For His Son is a Deepfake

Kanyakumari Congress candidate Vijay Vasanth used his late father's deepfake video for election campaigning.

A deepfake video of late Congress leader from Kanyakumari H Vasanthakumar was used to campaign for his son, Vijay Vasanth. 

(Altered by The Quint) 

A video of late Congress leader H Vasanthakumar from Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu in Tamil language is being shared on social media platforms. He can be heard campaigning for his son, Vijay Vasanth, who is Congress's candidate for the Lok Sabha seat.

What does Vasanthakumar say?: Speaking in Tamil, Vasanthakumar expresses confidence in his son Vijay Vasanath. He also calls him to the 'heir' of constituency, who will work for the betterment of the people of Kanyakumari.

• He also said his public life 'stopped' when he was in office. Vasanthakumar mentioned in the video that he was "physically separated" but was still present in "spirit."

• With this, he added, since he could not fulfil his aim of development in Kanyakumari, Vijay, his son, will carry on with this promise.

But..? The Congress leader passed away in 2020 due to the Coronavirus.

So, how is he campaigning for his son? The video is generated with the help of Artificial Intelligence tools and is a deepfake. The video was released in April.

We ran the video on AI detection websites such as Hive Moderation and TrueMedia, and it was concluded that the clip was generated via AI.

Hive Moderation: The tool concluded that 80 percent input was likely to contain AI or Deepfake content.

Here is a copy of the results given by Hive Moderation. 

(Source: Hive Moderation/Screenshot) 

TrueMedia: Similarly, TrueMedia also concluded that the video included inputs which were generated via AI.

Here is a copy of the results given by TrueMedia. 

(Source: TrueMedia/Screenshot) 

• Speaking to news agency Reuters, Congress leader and Kanyakumari MP candidate Vijay Vasanth's spokesperson told them that his team had created a two-minute clip using AI that was shared on social media platforms and showed his deceased father, Vasanthakumar, campaigning for him.

Other Deepfakes of Politicians/Celebrities

• Apart from Congress, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) released an AI-generated audio clip of their late leader J Jayalalithaa requesting support for party General Secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami in the upcoming Lok Sabha election.

• Similar AI-generated content was used by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in January. An AI-generated video of the late DMK leader M Karunanidhi was broadcasted during a launch of a book.

• Apart from these, Team WebQoof also debunked edited videos of celebrities such as Aamir Khan and Ranveer Singh campaigning for political parties in the elections.

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