A short video of about 46 seconds with claims linking Unity Party presidential candidate Joseph N. Boakai with “working with Russians and planning to destabilize Liberia’s peace” is fake. In the short video, there’s also claim that the “American government will be in the coming days announce sanction on top officials of the Unity Party”.
The video named Mr. Boakai, Nimba County Senator Prince Johnson, Evangelist Josuah Milton Blayee, a former warlord, and Montserrado County District # 10 Representative Yekeh Kolubah as the persons who will be sanctioned by the US government.
Claim #1: Joseph N. Boakai with “working with Russians and planning to destabilize Liberia’s peace.”
Verdict: Misleading
Our analysis of the video shows that there are lots of grammatical errors in the video, something which real news organizations would not frequently make, given the editorial processes that a news content goes through before broadcast.
There is also no name of the purported news institution, but an inscription “City Life News” can be seen on the desk behind which an unnamed lady sits and reads the news.
We search but did not find any credible news organization named “City Life News” with the same studio set up seen in the video.
A careful analysis also revealed that the voice from the video sound more robotic than human and the movement of the lady lips do not completely match the words being heard when listening. This means the movement of her lips are not synced with her word she’s uttering.
We also conducted a reverse image search of the video and found that the video was created using a website called Fiverr – an online tool site that is used for graphics and design as well as video and animation. It’s an Artificial Intelligence (AI) that can be used produce a video from words typed into the system.
There are many templates of a studio designs which can be paid for and used to produce an AI video.
We also scan the video through Deepware – a software used to detect deepfakes that are created with the help of artificial intelligence. This means that the chances of the video been deepfake is created with the help of artificial intelligence is 99%.
Conclusion
Based on these facts above, we conclude that the viral video with claims that Unity Party Presidential candidate Joseph Boakai is doing business with the Russian and is organizing men to bring war to Liberia is fake.
Our search of the video shows that it was created using an artificial intelligence video website called Fiverr.
Claim #2: “American government will be in the coming days announce sanction on top officials of the Unity Party”.
Verdict: Misleading
To verify this claim, we contacted the United States Embassy near Monrovia and got a response from Sean Boda, the Public Affairs Officer of U.S Embassy near Monrovia, clarifying that the US Government does not pre-disclose any information about planned sanction.
He wrote: “It is important to emphasize that the United States Government does not preview sanctions actions and anyone purporting to “know” about planned sanctions is spreading misinformation.”
Conclusion
We therefore conclude that the claim that the US Government is planning to sanction members of the Unity Party is misleading. The US Government does not disclose information about planned sanctions.
This report was developed with the support of Internews through the USAID Media Activity project. The funder has no say in the editorial decision leading to the production of this content.
