Laughably Bad Zelensky Deepfakes Could Take a Dangerous Turn for the Worse

A fake video of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appearing to tell his soldiers to lay down their weapons began circulating online this week, raising questions about just how easy it is for bad actors to influence the information flooding the zone as Russia continues to invade Ukraine.

Experts have quickly debunked the apparent deepfake—in part because it’s almost laughable how badly made the video is, according to Mounir Ibrahim, vice president of impact at Truepic, a company with backing from Microsoft’s venture capital arm to help root out deepfakes or manipulated media online.

“The fact that it’s so poorly done is a bit of a headscratcher,” Ibrahim told The Daily Beast. “You can clearly see the difference this is not the best deepfake we’ve seen—not even close.” Ibrahim cautioned that he had not analyzed the apparent deepfake to verify exactly what kind of manipulated media it was, and whether it could be classified as a deepfake—media that had been manipulated using machine learning—or a cheap fake—altered media changed with cheap technology—or other synthetic media.

Read more at The Daily Beast.