Edited Images, Deepfake of Sonakshi Sinha Viral on Social Media After Wedding

Both these visuals have been edited and are not real, as claimed.

Two visuals of actor Sonakshi Sinha are being shared. One video shows her in a bikini, walking down a ramp and another image shows her in a hijab.

(Archives of similar claims can be found here and here.)

Are these visuals real?: Both visuals are edited.

• First, the video purportedly showing Sinha in a bikini is a deepfake while, the one in hijab is generated using Artificial Intelligence.

• The video in the bikini originally shows model Alejandra Talles. It was shot in January.

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How did we find out?: We checked both visuals separately and found the following.

Visual in Bikini: We took a few screenshots of the video and ran a Google reverse image search on some of them.

• We came across a channel named, 'BME Visuals' on YouTube which had uploaded a similar video of a woman in the same outfit in February.

• It was uploaded with the caption, "Alejandra Talles is stunning, walking down the runway for Coconut Bikini in Miami Art Basel 2023 Full Show in slow motion."

• The Quint has reached out to the YouTube channel for their inputs and the story will be updated once the response comes.

• We also found a YouTube short which uploaded the same video of model Alejandra Talles walking down a ramp.

• Team WebQoof ran the video on TrueMedia, an AI-detection tool and found that there were discrepancies in facial features. We found that the video was a deepfake.

Report by Deepfake Analysis Unit (DAU): The report determined that Sinha's face had been replaced with the face of another woman strolling the ramp in a swimsuit in order to produce a deepfake of the actress. We found this by running the video through AI detection techniques and escalating it to our forensic and detection partners.

• The report noted that there were several inconsistencies with the facial expressions of Sinha's face.

• DAU ran the video on Hive AI’s deepfake detection tool did indicate that the video had been manipulated using AI.

• The report also noted co-founder of GetReal Labs Dr Hany Farid who identified optical anomalies in the video, notably in Sinha's left eye and right eyebrow. They observed that both visual cues point to a face-swap deepfake and are consistent with synthesis.

Visual in Hijab: At first, we ran a Google reverse image search on the image and came across a post on X by user @SonakshiSinha_0, which had garnered 169.2K views.

• It was captioned with "How am I looking Sonakshi Sinha Khan."

• We checked the account details and noticed that it was a 'parody' account of the actor.

• We ran this image on TrueMedia and found 'substantial evidence of manipulation' as the image had been generated using AI.

Similarly, another AI-detection tool, Hive Moderation's analysis, said the image is 96.3 percent AI-generated.

This image went viral weeks after Sinha's wedding to her partner, Zaheer Iqbal who belongs to the Muslim community. The couple faced backlash and hate on their social media platforms following the announcement of their union.

Conclusion: Two edited visuals of Sonakshi Sinha are being circulated to falsely claim one shows her in a bikini and the other, in a hijab.

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