Deepfake audio falsely depicts Barack Obama discussing conspiracy theory

A deepfake audio recording depicting Barack Obama defending himself against a conspiracy theory about the sudden death of his former chef Tafari Campbell was identified as a hoax.

The audio recording was identified as a deepfake by misinformation monitoring company NewsGuard, which exposed a network of TikTok accounts posting videos whose baseless claims are often supported solely by narration from AI voices.

Despite TikTok’s new guidelines requiring realistic synthetic media to be labelled, the accounts, which bypass these restrictions, have been able to gain hundreds of millions of views. 

NewsGuard noted that the trend of using synthetic audio to share sensational rumours sets a precedent for bad actors to manipulate public opinion and share falsehoods to mass audiences online.