Profiles do not use images of famous people, presenters and public figures to disseminate videos with misinformation, mainly about politics. This content uses sensationalist language and the appearance of real news to attract views and engagement.
At the request of readers, . They publish videos with headlines like “urgent” and “breaking news”, often accompanied by images of well-known presenters or politicians. The content, however, was not produced by press vehicles.
The report identified two profiles with these characteristics that, together, accumulate more than 173 thousand followers. Individually, they each garnered over 5 million views on their videos. Both adopt similar strategies and use the faces of North American presenters Bill Maher and Stephen Colbert to transmit content about the Brazilian government, without the warning that the posts are generated by artificial intelligence.
According to Pedro Burgos, AI consultant and professor at Insper, there are several AI models available for video that can be used for this type of falsification. “What appears to be being done is: the profile owners took excerpts from the presenters’ videos (and there is a lot of material on YouTube) and used AI to lip-sync. You can see that they always make the same gestures, the eye blinks a little strangely, which indicates that they are re-dubbed looping excerpts”, he says.
On TikTok, when a video is made by AI, there is an option to mark “AI-generated content.” However, in the cases analyzed, the profiles do not use this marking, which can lead the public to believe that everything said is real. According to Liz Nóbrega, coordinator of strategic communication and innovation at Aláfia Lab and researcher at USP, videos can violate both Brazilian legislation and the platforms’ rules.
“The platform is being negligent in letting this content circulate, because TikTok itself has specific rules regarding misinformation and AI-generated media and content,” he states.
These profiles exploit the public’s trust in familiar faces and the format of news programs to lend credibility to false information.
Bill Maher and Stephen Colbert made few statements about Brazilian politics throughout their careers. In January 2024, Maher published a video of an excerpt from his talk show on Instagram stating that . He made reference to the former president’s ineligibility () and said that “after January 8, almost all of Brazil turned against the coup plotters and turned Bolsonaro into a pariah.”
Colbert has also spoken about the January 8th invasions on his program. At the time, he posted a video on , comparing the case to the depredations at the Capitol, in the United States, in 2021.
Liz Nóbrega says that this type of manipulation already occurred before, but required more specialized technical knowledge. “Nowadays, it’s very simple to search and find tools that allow you to create, for example, a news program in five seconds, with presenters.”
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The investigation of this content was carried out by UOL and O Dia and published on November 3 by Projeto Comprova, a coalition that brings together 41 vehicles to check viral content. It was verified by Folha, Estadão and A Gazeta.
