Monitoring Desk: AFP News Agency caught a doctored video that is part of the Cheap Fake and Deep Fake campaign launched by PTI leadership through their keyboard warriors against state institutions and political opponents.
The story of Masroor Gilani of AFP Pakistan explains that old footage of a former Federal Minister of PMLN Khawaja Saad Rafique was doctored to make it look like Khawaja Saad Rafique was praising Imran Khan who is not only an opponent but rather bloodthirsty of Khawaja Saad Rafique.
The edited footage, according to the AFP story was manipulated from a December 2022 speech of Khawaja Saad Rafique in which he in fact criticized Khan and defended Nawaz Sharif, the supreme leader of his political party—PMLN.
In this Deep Fake video, Khawaja Saad Rafique was shown saying that Imran Khan wanted to make Pakistan the number one country in the world and Imran was disqualified through a conspiracy.
The Deep Fake video further shows that Saad is saying:
What did he do wrong? What sin had Imran Khan committed? Making Pakistan a modern country?”
Saad Rafique also appears in a Fake video while accusing the PML-N’s leader Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of “fraud” — apparently referring to his alliance that shut out Khan loyalists from power after the February 2024 election found no clear winner.
In reality, a keyword search on YouTube found the original video of Rafique’s speech, in which he in fact criticized Khan and praised Nawaz Sharif — Shehbaz’s brother and ex-prime minister. Pakistan’s 24 News live-streamed the speech, which Rafique gave in Lahore, on YouTube on December 26, 2022.
At the video’s 14:43 mark, Rafique said: “Nawaz Sharif was disqualified through a conspiracy. What did he do wrong? What sin had Nawaz Sharif committed? Making Pakistan a modern country?”
He was referring to Sharif’s ousting by Pakistan’s Supreme Court in 2017 over long-running corruption allegations.
At the time, the Sharifs and their supporters repeatedly denied the allegations and said Nawaz was the victim of a conspiracy driven by Pakistan’s powerful military establishment.
At the video’s 10:35 mark, Rafique accused Imran Khan of “fraud” — not Shehbaz Sharif, as the edited clip appears to show.
This is not the first time that PTI has been caught red-handed while creating and spreading Deep and Cheap Fake videos, content, and audio. On May 17, 2023, France 24 ran an investigative story titled “Pakistan political turmoil: These ‘PTI protest’ images aren’t real”.
France 24 found PTI Campaign against Pakistan Army is Fake
France 24 caught fake videos and photos that PTI was using since last week to get the attention of international feminist organizations
PTI was quite successful in the past in attracting the support of civil society because it is always easy to inflict damage with manipulative content, it serves two purposes; one it affects the population having no or minimal knowledge of the mechanism of deep and cheap fakes, due to their ignorance or innocence take everything as it is and become the victim and later part of hate-driven propaganda, second purpose achieved is called a deviation from actual problems.
Artificial Intelligence-generated photos and videos were presented as images from PTI’s nationwide demonstrations in support of former prime minister Imran Khan. Actually, these items were just some links to a chain of propaganda that PTI has launched to defame Pakistan as a country and the military of Pakistan as an institution. However, this propaganda had been exposed by Vedika Bahl of France 24 television who took a closer look at the misinformation that’s circulating in international virtual space.
In the edition of “Truth or Fake”, France 24 caught fake videos and photos that PTI had been using to get the attention of international feminist organizations, claiming that PTI female followers are writing a new history of feminist resistance under the slogan of “This is the Real Feminism”.
Vedika Bahl thoroughly explained frame by frame and confirmed that PTI was using expensive tools of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to produce visual material for campaigning (against) Pakistan.
Contemporary propaganda acquires the connotation of negativity and becomes synonymous with maligning, untruthful, and destructive. The very basis of propaganda, positive or negative is semiotics. Propaganda requires meaning-making tools and all the aspects which can create meaning become a resource for propagation. A word, a brush, a picture, a gesture a melody, all are meaning-making tools, and their use cannot detach from personal biases and that is the beauty of it, having numerous expressions coming from uncountable individuals creates our collective knowledge. However, this human cognitive ability can be played with like all other brain functions. Our cognitive system can be manipulated with the help of manipulative tools. Now AI can easily produce material (audio-visual as well as text form) while replacing human meaning-making tools. This service is expensive but it is very successful and that is why PTI having foreign donations and funding has continuously used these tools now its game is being exposed because its content is being challenged within the country and abroad.
It is pertinent to mention that propagandists study the core beliefs of the target group, gauge the flexibility of intermediate beliefs, and then work on the most accepted meaning-making tool because anything not connected to core beliefs can never be perceived as an automatic thought.
It may be remembered India had been using such tools against Pakistan and EU DisinfoLab uncovered, more than 750 media outlets in 116 countries; over 550 website domain names registered; the resurrection of dead people; the impersonation of EU institutions, and direct control of more than 10 NGOs accredited to the UN Human Rights Council, utilized for the purpose of pushing fake news and false Indian propaganda against Pakistan since 2005.
But after watching France 24 “Fact or Fake” digging the truth, I could not blame India for its damage to Pakistan’s reputation, after all, he is considered our enemy, but Imran Khan who is the most honest, charismatic, fair and handsome among all, claiming to be the protector of Pakistan is playing with Pakistan’s reputation and sovereignty. I do not think after having Imran Khan we need another enemy.
