Comedian Jordan Peele gave the voice-over in the digitally manipulated video of Barack Obama.
A new video of former US president Barack Obama delivering a Public Service Announcement (PSA) was posted on the internet on Tuesday and within hours it went viral. The video, a collaborative mockumentary by Comedian Jordan Peele and BuzzFeed, appears to show Mr Obama calling President Donald Trump "a total and complete dips***" among other bizarre statements. But the video is fake and is meant to alarm the viewer about fake news.
Halfway through the video, it is revealed that Comedian Peele had given the voice-over and digitally manipulated it using latest Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques to make it look like an original speech. Tools like Adobe After Effects and AI face-swapping tool FakeApp have been used to doctor the video. FakeApp is a free tool that's recently been used to insert the faces of celebrities into porn videos.
According to media reports, the aim of the video was to make its viewers aware that one must not believe everything that is shown in the videos circulated online.
Comedian Peele and BuzzFeed founder and CEO Jonah Peretti together helmed this video project under the banner Monkeypaw Productions to highlight the importance of the media literacy among people.
Here's the doctored video of Barack Obama that highlights about fake news:
After posting the video, Buzzfeed also gave 5 tips to avoid falling for fake videos like one above:
1. Don't jump to conclusions
2. Consider the source
3. Check where else it is (and isn't) online
4. Look closely at the speaker's mouth
5. Slow the video down