Claim: Video shows a Pakistani soldier trudging through snow on a high altitude mountain.
Fact: The video has signs of manipulation and is a misleading caricature of Pakistani soldiers stationed at high altitude mountains.
A Facebook user posted a video (archive) apparently showing a Pakistani soldier trudging through snow on a high altitude mountain. The description of the post stated: “7,000 feet high, in minus 16 degree temperature, they are keeping watch so that we can sleep safe and sound. Long live Pakistan 🇵🇰 Long live Pak Fauj [army] 🇵🇰 Markhor ka Pakistan.”
A patriotic Hindi song “Teri Mitti Mein Mil Jawa” [I will turn into ashes and join your soil] from Bollywood film ‘Kesari’ plays over the video.
While it is true that Pakistani soldiers are stationed at high altitude mountains, this particular video is not real. In fact, it indicates the proliferation of sophisticated editing techniques to spread disinformation.
Fact or Fiction?
The video of a soldier is altered and contains clear signs of manipulation according to expert analysis and digital verification tools.
The eyes of the soldier, which are barely visible, obscured by the “extreme blurriness of the video,” indicate manipulation of the footage, according to an analytical report sent to Soch Fact Check by V.S. Subramanian, a professor of computer science at Northwestern University, and coauthored by Marco Postiglione, postdoctoral researcher at Northwestern University. “This poor quality could be intentional to conceal visual manipulations of the content,” the report added.
Soch Fact Check then noted another sign of manipulation: a blue box that appeared in and out at the bottom throughout the video. Our correspondence with experts confirmed this as well. In response to our email, Dr Oren Etzioni, founder of True Media, a tool that detects deepfakes, also noted that the blue box “suggests that the video was manipulated.” Northwestern University’s report reiterated this, adding that “this box seems out of place in the video’s mountain environment, which could also potentially indicate content manipulations.”
Further, the Northwestern University’s report noted that the video shows the soldier only wearing gloves with no facial protection. This could potentially indicate the video is “not completely authentic” as soldiers stationed at high-altitude snowy mountains need the necessary clothing and gear to fight severe weather, the report added.
Soch Fact Check then compared the soldier’s appearance in the video with actual images of Pakistani soldiers stationed on high altitudes. Unlike the video, the actual images show them in the proper attire necessary for the extreme climatic conditions.
Lastly, we ran the video through online AI detection tools which also revealed some signs of manipulation.
True Media’s detector returned the verdict that the footage has “some evidence of manipulation.”
InVid’s deepfake detector showed a 97% probability which is “strong evidence suggesting that this video contains AI manipulated faces.”
Northwestern University’s report, sent to Soch Fact Check, which includes analysis by seven deepfake detection algorithms indicated mixed results about the video being fake. “1 out of 7 predictive models said that the video is likely fake with a probability above 0.5,” the report concluded. The model which stated the video is likely fake has a precision rating of 0.8, meaning this model’s prediction can be considered reliable.
The remaining six models assigned a probability below 0.5 to the video being fake, meaning they leaned toward it being real rather than inauthentic. The report, nonetheless, noted that the precision of the models for determining whether videos are real ranges between “0.35 and 0.48,” making their predictions less reliable. Since one model assigned a high probability to the video being fake (above 0.5), the chances of it being fake cannot be ruled out. Therefore, while Northwestern University’s report did not definitively conclude that the video is fake, it did not declare that the video is entirely authentic either.
While Soch Fact Check can conclude that the video is likely fake, we could not ascertain the extent of AI manipulations. Professor Subramanian’s and Oren’s analysis concurs that determining the extent of AI manipulations of the video is difficult while Etzioni stated that they could not be sure if the video was AI-generated or a deepfake. However, their analysis is consistent with results from True Media and InVid, which show some signs of manipulation whereas others don’t.
“We believe this video is possibly fake; however, we cannot confidently assess the extent of AI manipulations,” the report by Northwestern University’s Global Online Deepfake Detection System concluded.
There could be various reasons for this. Firstly, loud music plays over the video which makes audio analysis of the sounds difficult. Second, the rise in sophisticated edited techniques and easy access to AI, makes it all the more difficult to detect the manipulation in such videos and stop their proliferation.
“People will buy into things that reinforce their current beliefs… So they’ll believe even a poorly manipulated video if it’s about someone they don’t like or think of in a certain way,” Edward J. Delp, a professor at the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University, told CNN.
Therefore, Soch Fact Check cannot ascertain if the video is entirely AI-generated or is a deepfake. However, our thorough analysis shows that it is likely altered as it contains clear signs of manipulation.
Virality
The Facebook post garnered 4.1 million views, was liked 29,000 times.
It appeared on Facebook here, here, here, here, here, here, here.
Conclusion: The video of a Pakistani soldier trudging through snow on a high altitude mountain is likely altered as it contains clear signs of manipulation.
Background image in cover photo: Dawn
To appeal against our fact-check, please send an email to appeals@sochfactcheck.com