00:00Watch out for these fake Euronews reports about the Middle East war.
00:07Words are quite literally being put in journalists' mouths
00:10in fake Euronews reports about the ongoing war in the Middle East.
00:14One reporter's piece about a drone strike on a luxury hotel in Dubai
00:18was manipulated with AI to make it seem like she was claiming
00:22that Ukrainian looters had become active in Dubai following the strike.
00:26The journalist's voice was likely manipulated with an AI voice cloning software
00:30to manipulate her actual voice and generate new speech from a pre-drafted script.
00:35As you can see from the clip, when the fake voiceover starts speaking,
00:39it does so overstock images,
00:41which is cheaper and quicker than making an AI clone of the reporter.
00:45The same strategy was employed in this video
00:47to falsely allege damage to a luxury mansion belonging to a Ukrainian general.
00:52Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan was also targeted
00:55in a fake Euronews report,
00:57which alleged that one of Iran's strikes on the UAE
01:00damaged his apartment, estimated at $170 million in the video.
01:05False information about an apartment belonging to Pashinyan in the UAE
01:09has circulated online as early as 2021,
01:12shared by the Telegram channel Media Port
01:15and the Gazeta of Armenians in Russia.
01:17Pashinyan has previously denied allegations about foreign properties
01:21he and his family are said to own,
01:23with his press secretary taking to X to deny the latest allegations.
01:27Anti-Bot for Navalny, a collective that tracks bot networks,
01:30linked this campaign to the Matryoshka operation.
01:33This network, which relies on bot accounts to publish videos en masse,
01:37has been tied to Russian actors.
01:39Euronews was not the only outlet targeted,
01:42as other reputable news outlets and research bodies were also imitated.
01:45Researchers say disinformation actors have used the war in the Middle East
01:50to push unrelated narratives
01:51which aim to tarnish the reputation of Ukraine and the West.
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