Claim: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defines the term ceasefire as an incident when someone “sees a fire”, which “could be a big fire or a small fire, a bonfire or even a candle flame”.
Fact: The video is not authentic. A snippet from AOC’s real October 2023 livestream on Instagram has been doctored using altered audio.
On 16 November 2024, X (formerly Twitter) user @TrollsByDennis posted (archive) a video of US Democratic lawmaker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, often known as just AOC, with the following caption:
“Should Trump make @AOC the Secretary of Big Bootie Latinas? Be honest”
In the viral video clip, which has been viewed over 8,300 times so far, Ocasio-Cortez, who is wearing a brown outfit, can be heard saying, “Ceasefire means that somebody sees a fire. It could be any kind of fire. It could be a big fire or a small fire, a bonfire or even a candle flame. It just matters that somebody sees a fire – that’s why we call it a ceasefire.”
The reference to Trump in the X post’s caption is in light of his victory (archive) in the 2024 US elections to become the 47th president, bagging the 270 electoral votes required to enter the Oval Office. Biden’s term officially ends “at noon ET” (archive) on 20 January 2025.
The president-elect is currently building his new team.
The term “ceasefire” has gained significant traction since October 2023, according to Google Trends, following Israel’s war against Hamas in Palestine, primarily Gaza, that started the same month.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check first observed that the words spoken in the video are out of sync with what AOC’s lips appear to be uttering.
We also noticed the word “C3PMEME” that appears as a watermark just to the right side of AOC’s face. A Google search for it leads to the same user’s profiles on different social media platforms — including X, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook — where they refer to themselves as “Meme Making Droid” and “Digital Mischief Maker”.
Browsing through the user’s social media accounts, as well as using keyframes from the video in reverse image search tools, we were able to trace their original post to 18 November 2023 on X, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook. In the captions, they have admitted to the fact that the clip is a “deepfake”.
The reverse image search tools also led us to AOC’s original video that was livestreamed on her Instagram account on 23 October 2023 with the caption, “Updates on #CeasefireNOW. Call your member of Congress. Link in bio”. Soch Fact Check found that a snippet from this post was separated and doctored using altered audio that can be heard in the viral clip.
View this post on Instagram
The search also led us to posts by X users who identified and flagged the video as altered or a deepfake as can be viewed here, here, here, here, and here.
In our Google search using certain keywords, we found a research paper titled “Lost in Translation: Lip-Sync Deepfake Detection from Audio-Video Mismatch” authored by Professor Dr Hany Farid, a faculty member of the UC Berkeley’s School of Information and Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences. His research focuses on digital forensics and misinformation and he is also a member of the Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research (BAIR) Lab.
Matyas Bohacek, a student at Stanford University who was advised by Prof Farid, is listed as a co-author in the paper, which analysed “in-the-wild deepfakes” using a collection of “14 verified deepfakes from a variety of online sites”. A comparison of “equally-spaced frames from three of 14” samples — available in Figure 7 on page 6 of the paper — noted that the AOC sample was “from apparently politically-motivated deepfakes meant to criticize or ridicule these politicians”.
Moreover, the X post by @TrollsByDennis was sourced from another one (archive) published on 11 November 2024 by X user @NightH4wk__, whose video was flagged by the Community Notes feature on platform.
The source cited in the Community Note was a fact-check by Reuters, which included a quote from AOC’s spokesperson, Lauren Hitt, who confirmed to the publication that the video is “fake”.
We also came across an article by Logically Facts, accredited by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), of which Soch Fact Check is also a signatory. The publication observed “several tell-tale signs”, including that “at a certain point in this part of the full-length video [on her Instagram], she can be seen putting out her tongue for a brief moment while speaking, but the viral clip does not include this slight movement, while all the other minute movements, such as the head tilt and hand gestures are the same”.
Virality
While using reverse image search tools, we found that this is not the first time the video has popped up on social media. However, posts that surfaced in November 2024 — such as here and here — appear to be in connection to the 2024 US elections.
Soch Fact Check found that the video has appeared multiple times in 2024, including in February, April, June, July, August, and October.
Right-wing commentator Ian Miles Cheong — who often shares false claims and whose posts have been debunked multiple times by Soch Fact Check — uploaded the video twice on his X account here and here in June 2024 and November 2023, respectively. User @Alphafox78 also published the clip thrice this year: in June, July, and in October.
The clip was shared often in November 2023 on X, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Conclusion: The video is fake as it uses a snippet from AOC’s authentic October 2023 livestream on Instagram overlaid with different, altered audio.
Background image in cover photo: OcasioCortez
To appeal against our fact-check, please send an email to appeals@sochfactcheck.com