Recently, a video titled “A new project for the citizens of Bangladesh” has been circulated on social media.
In it, it is claimed that the government has launched an investment platform where a citizen can earn 3,70,000 BDT per week, and the Chief Advisor of the interim government, Dr. Muhammad Yunus, is giving an interview about the matter. Additionally, the video also claims that by investing only 30,500 BDT, there is a guaranteed income of 3,70,000 BDT per week.
See the posts circulated on Facebook with this claim here (archive) and here (archive).
Fact-check
Upon investigation by the Rumor Scanner team, it was found that the claim that the government has launched an investment platform and that a huge profit can be made from an investment of 30,500 BDT is baseless. In fact, a video of an interview with Chief Advisor Dr. Muhammad Yunus, given to the Qatar-based international news outlet Al Jazeera, has been distorted using Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to spread the discussed claim.
At the beginning of the investigation, using reverse image search from stills taken from the video, a report published on April 27 of this year was found on Al Jazeera’s YouTube (English) channel titled “Bangladesh’s future: Change or Elite reshuffle? Muhammad Yunus answers”. In that interview, Dr. Muhammad Yunus was not seen making any comments about such an investment initiative.
Although the visuals of the video circulated with the claim bear similarities with the 27:15-minute mark of the original interview, discrepancies were noted in the audio (voice).
Moreover, upon observing the circulated video, Dr. Muhammad Yunus’ voice, the unnatural movement of his lips, and inconsistencies in his usual presentation were noticed — which were not observed in the actual interview.
Later, through relevant keyword searches, no information regarding such an investment initiative by the government was found in domestic or international media or from any reliable source.
To further confirm the matter, the audio of the video circulated with the claim was analyzed using the voice AI content detection platform Hive Moderation, which showed a 99.8% probability of being AI-generated. Additionally, analysis by a model from the deepfake detection tool ‘DeepFake-O-Meter’ showed a 100% probability that the video was generated using Artificial Intelligence.
Therefore, the edited video of Chief Advisor Dr. Muhammad Yunus’ interview, created using AI, has been circulated on social media claiming that the government has launched an investment platform — a claim which is false.
Sources
- Al Jazeera English: YouTube Video
- Hive Moderation Tool
- DeepFake-O-Meter
- Rumor Scanner’s analysis
