A fake and heavily manipulated video depicting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy circulated on social media and was placed on a Ukrainian news website by hackers Wednesday before it was debunked and removed.
The video, which shows a rendering of the Ukrainian president appearing to tell his soldiers to lay down their arms and surrender the fight against Russia, is a so-called deepfake that ran about a minute long.
It is not yet clear who created the deepfake, but government officials in Ukraine have been warning for weeks about the possibility of Russia spreading manipulated videos as part of its information warfare. Ukraine's military intelligence agency released a video this month about how state-sponsored deepfakes could be used to sow panic and confusion.
While the video shows a passable lip-sync, viewers quickly pointed out that Zelenskyy's accent was off and that his head and voice did not appear authentic upon close inspection.
Officials at Facebook, YouTube and Twitter said the video was removed from their platforms for violating policies. On Russian social media, meanwhile, the deceptive video was boosted.
"This is the first one we've seen that really got some legs, but I suspect it's the tip of the iceberg," said Hany Farid, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley who is an expert in digital media forensics.
In a video posted to his Telegram channel, Zelenskyy responded to the fake video by saying: "We are defending our land, our children, our families. So we don't plan to lay down any arms. Until our victory."
The message was not just displayed across social media, however. It also appeared briefly on television in Ukraine and on a news broadcaster's website.
