Meanwhile the already pro-militia political situation in
Burkina Faso has become more complicated,
thanks to things going on online having to do with AI generated videos.
So these are videos purporting to show individuals from America and
other countries providing support for
the military junta that has been in power in that country for four or five months.
At this point it's weird, let's take a look.
>> Hello to the African people and particularly to the Burkinabe people.
My name is Alicia and I'm a Pan-Africanist.
I appeal to the solidarity of the African people and
the people of Burkina Faso to effectively support the authorities of the transition.
We must support the patriotic movement for safeguard and restoration and
President Ibrahim Traoré who imposes respect for his sovereignty.
Let us all remain mobilized behind the Burkini people in this
common struggle, homeland or death we shall overcome.
>> Sorry, I think that our control room might have made a mistake because that
video is clearly real.
I asked for the AI generated one and that one just smacked of authenticity.
I don't know who that's supposed to convince,
maybe it's designed to fool people who don't speak English.
So maybe, but even you'd hear that it was artificial like it doesn't seem to match.
And the whole thing is ridiculous and it's not real and
we talk about it's not only because it sucks that you have these forces
online trying to use digital AstroTurf like deep fake protests or
whatever to support a military coup in this particular case.
I'm not gonna pretend to be anything even approaching
an expert on the situation there.
So let's be very clear about that, I'm focusing right now on the deepfakes.
JR I am just terrified about how common these are gonna be and
they're not gonna be as fake as that or is obviously fake.
There's gonna be 2024 fake videos of Joe Biden or
whoever the candidate is Trump is gonna be spreading fake videos of Ron de Santis.
It's all gonna be fake soon, and
I'm just horrified about how ill prepared most people are to tell real from fake
when they sort of go with what they want rather than with what's clearly true.
What do you think?
>> Yeah, it was set up this way, I mean look Trump stole my fake news years ago.
So anybody that's gonna report this not being real because people are gonna buy
whatever they see on social media, it's all on Facebook, therefore that's real.
That's that's the thought process and this is where it's leading.
Obviously, I guess for good measure right now,
at least we can tell the difference is, and as you say this
is gonna get worse being more believable from these types of things.
But the fact that there's still even being, I guess put out there and for
people to really think that they're gonna buy into this,
I guess a certain percentage do that they're willing to push this.
Imagine when it's actually believable, how much it's gonna get spread around.
I mean, I guess max Headroom is next this,
I figured it should have been much better even by now, that was 1987 when
Max Headroom was doing his thing with the stuff, it was really weird.
But that was part of the entertainment, so deep fakes now with military propaganda.
And also as I talked earlier on my show with a fake porn folks too,
because that's the first thing they did of course.
>> Of course, yeah.
Yeah, no, I mean, they're gonna get their jollies off and
then they're going to try to influence what happens politically.
Those are the two big things, some people will just use it for
fun or whatever to make new episodes Seinfeld or something.
But it can be deeply serious, like this is a serious thing.
People think we don't we don't know for sure.
Again, not an expert, it's too early to say.
Some people think that the Wagner group,
this Russian private military company might be involved in this.
We have no idea at this point, but
the Wagner group has worked with regimes in Central African Republic,
other other places and so it is possible it's a terrible situation there.
We're joking about the AI part of this, but it is of course being used to
provide PR for a terrible situation that is ongoing there.
Anyway, we all need to be on guard for
this sort of thing because it's not going away, it's only gonna become more common.
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