These Videos of Journalists Promoting 'Weight Loss Medicines' are Deepfakes!

Several deepfake videos of TV anchors and journalists are going viral to promote false advertisements.

Several videos featuring TV anchors promoting 'weight loss medicines' are going viral on social media.

These videos includes Rajat Sharma, the Editor-in-Chief of India TV News and Chitra Tripathi, an Editor at Aaj Tak. One of the videos contains a byte from Dr Naresh Trehan, chairman and MD of Medanta Hospital.

(Similar archives can be seen here, here and here.)

What's the truth?: These are deepfake videos.

• The original videos, which are unrelated to weight loss medicines, have been digitally altered to claim that you can lose 15kg of weight in 10 days.

How did we find out the truth?: We performed a relevant keyword search to find such reports where these anchors, Sharma and Tripathi, are talking about such medicines but were unable to find any.

Tripathi's video: We checked Aaj Tak's official Facebook page which carried videos of Tripathi with the same attire and background set up.

• We did not find any video where she is seen promoting "weight loss medicines".

• In fact, her videos in this attire were about Assembly elections and Israel-Hamas war.

• These videos from 16 October 2023 can be seen here, here and here.

Sharma's video: We looked for Sharma's video in the same attire on his official Instagram account shared on 21 July 2022.

• In this video, Sharma addresses death threats that he had received and does not talk about any "weight loss medicines".

• We also found the same video on India TV News' YouTube channel.

• He has also shared a video on his Instagram on 19 November 2023 where he clarifies that a lot of deepfake videos of him talking about medicines and job opportunities are going viral.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Rajat Sharma (@rajatsharmalive)

Dr Trehan's video: A keyword search on YouTube directed us to a video of the doctor, where could be seen wearing a similar attire and sitting in the same setting.

• The video was shared on an unverified YouTube channel named 'Vattikuti Foundation'.

• It was uploaded on 13 February 2023 and was titled, "Humans of Robotic Surgery- Dr. Naresh Trehan/India's First Robot."

• He could be heard talking about his journey about introducing the minimal invasive techniques during cardiac surgery.

We have also reached out to the journalists and the story would be updated once we receive a response.

Conclusion: Deepfake videos of journalists promoting 'weight loss medicines' are going viral on the internet as real.

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