Al video depicts Indonesian presidential hopeful speaking fluent Arabic

An AI-altered TikTok video purportedly falsely showed Anies Baswedan, an Indonesian presidential candidate, speaking Arabic at a rally.

Despite Baswedan's team clarifying he only has a basic grasp of Arabic, the video falsely portrayed him as fluent. Analysis by AFP confirmed the video had been automatically translated.

The 18-second fake clip highlighted Baswedan advocating for the Nasdem Party, which had endorsed his presidential bid, and garnered over 2.6 million views. This incident led to the widespread belief amongst viewers regarding Baswedan’s linguistic prowess. 

The manipulated video was created from genuine footage of Baswedan speaking Bahasa Indonesian at a July 2023 political event.