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AI-GENERATED FOOTAGE and old videos of military operations, protests and celebrations, have spread across the internet In the wake of the US capturing of ousted Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.
Although a raid did happen, many images being shared online that purport to show it are fake.
US forces captured Maduro last Saturday, leading to widespread confusion over the future of Venezuela, inflamed by American officials’ conflicting statements over whether they plan to “run” the country.
Maduro’s Vice-President Delcy Rodriguez was yesterday sworn in as Venezuela’s interim president, hours after her predecessor pleaded not guilty to drugs and weapons charges in a New York federal courthouse.
However, very few real images have been released from the actual raid that led to Maduro’s capture, and public reaction in Venezuela has been hard to discern from afar.
Reporters in Caracas say that mostly only supporters of Maduro have taken to the streets.
Into the confusion, old, mis-purposed and AI-generated videos have spread widely, along with false claims that they show the US operation or footage from Venezuela celebrating the seizure of Maduro.
In one video, a raging thunderstorm can be seen illuminating smoke rising from explosions in the background and three black helicopters sweep over a cityscape, supposedly of Caracas, the Venezuelan capital.
Another video shows a giant aircraft, with two helicopter rotor blades hovering over a building as militants jump out on ropes to the rooftop.
Both of these have been widely shared online and described as showing the raid that took Maduro. But the latter was filmed in Miami in 2023. The former has small text in the bottom-left corner, which reads: “AI-generated.”
They’re not the only ones of their kind.
Another piece of footage, seemingly from the viewpoint of a soldier, shows a squad of special forces get out of a helicopter before travelling through the halls of an ornate palace.
“Put your hands up” they say to a woman sitting upright in her bed. Maduro (or what looks like him) is then shown being captured in what appears to be a giant safe, before he is forcibly taken away in a helicopter.
The footage looks professional, almost like it’s from film production – but it shows a scene that isn’t real.
Aside from eerie skin textures in the video, as well as some nonsensical details (like special forces gently pushing open the doors to the palace with a sledgehammer), the fundamental details are wrong: the real Maduro was captured in a safe house, not in a palace.
Despite this, this footage has been viewed widely, like the two previous videos.
Collectively, the three videos have been viewed tens of millions of times, according to statistics on X. Often, they were re-shared on the platform by blue tick “verified” users, which can generate revenue from high view counts.
However, they were far from the only videos falsely said to show the raid that captured Maduro.
Old footage from other military operations and training exercises, as well as more AI-generated videos, also garnered millions more views.
A 2021 livestream of a power cut in Italy was re-uploaded by a “verified” X account, along with the description: “A Venezuelan live streamer recorded the exact moment when US bombs hit the energy facilities and the lights went out in south Caracas.” It was viewed more than 2.1 million times.
Guns and helicopters weren’t the only subjects in fake and mislabelled videos.
Many others focused on what they claim are the reactions of Venezuelans to the capture of their head of government by the United States.
One video montage shows old women and young men cry in front of the camera, barely able to express their delight at the news.
It opens with a weeping woman hugging the Venezuelan flag as an unseen man speaks in Spanish. “The people are finally free”, the subtitles read. “Thanks to the United States for freeing us.”
In the background, other people wave or are dressed in clothes that display something almost, but not quite, like the Venezuelan flag. One woman’s yellow and blue t-shirt has only six stars, instead of the customary eight.
On another flag, the coat of arms is replaced by a red star. In others, it is supplemented by an extraneous fourth white band.
In yet others, a field of stars like that of the US flag runs across the entire blue band – at least sometimes. The layout of the flags and change as they are waved, sometimes adding or removing stars, entire bands of colour, or even changing the stripes from horizontal to vertical.
While such shifting fabric patterns is impossible in real-life, it is a telltale sign of generative AI. Such programmes have no understanding of how objects in real space work, but can generate a series of still frames based on text inputs, syncing and refining them based on what other frames have already been generated.
Shopfronts and graffiti in the video have what look almost, but not quite, like letters.
Licence plates feature characters that look almost, but not quite, like numbers – though not enough for Venezuelan license plates.
This entire montage, said to show Venezuela “crying on their knees thanking Trump and America for freeing them from Nicolas Maduro”, is fake, created by AI.
It has been viewed 5.7 million times on X.
Some videos do appear to show real people celebrating the capture of Maduro – however, despite their descriptions, they were not filmed in Venezuela.
One video does show real Venezuelans celebrating in the streets. Posts which claim that it shows a crowd celebrating Maduro’s capture have been viewed more than 5.7 million times. However, the video is old, showing fans welcoming a soccer team home in 2017.
Yet more videos show rallies in Venezuela where people are shown expressing public opposition to Maduro. However, they do not celebrate his capture by US forces; they were filmed months ago.
Many of these fake videos appear to have been uploaded with the intention to amuse, or perhaps to generate revenue.
However, many of the descriptions given appear to be using the fabricated footage as evidence of support for regime change – something this footage doesn’t actually show.
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