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| - A video showing Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman promoting an automated system linked to bank accounts which "generates additional income" is going viral online.
In the video, an anchor of CNN News18 can also be seen introducing this "new project which converts Rs 21,000 to Rs 1,500,000."
What's the truth?: This is a deepfake video, Sitharaman or Ministry of Finance has not launched any such project.
How did we find out the truth?: We performed a reverse image search on some of the keyframes of the viral video which led us to the original video of Sitharaman.
This was shared by News Nine on 1 February and shows Sitharaman talking about key aspects of the Union Budget 2025 and tax reforms.
It does not show her talking about investing in a bank account, which would increase your amount automatically.
We further noticed 'Walia CNN News18' flashing in the viral video, taking a cue, we checked CNN News18's YouTube Channel.
This led us to the original video showing anchor, Kritsween Walia, in the same attire and in the same backdrop.
Walia is seen talking about Maharashtra elections 2024 and this video was streamed on 18 November 2024.
Nowhere in this bulletin does she mention about an investing scheme.
We used AI-detection tool, Contrails AI, to scan this video.
The results concluded that the video and audio in this clip are AI-manipulated.
It added that lip movements in the video look manipulated and unnatural with respect to the rest of the face.
The results also stated that the voice in the video is very robotic and does not sound completely like Sitharaman. Hence, a low-quality voice clone or TTS voice sample has been used here for manipulation.
Moreover, we did not find any official announcement by the central government or any credible reports which mentioned about such "special bank accounts/software/projects".
Conclusion: A deepfake video of Nirmala Sitharaman is going viral to claim that she is advocating for investing in a special bank account that will grow the funds in your account.
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