A deepfake video falsely claiming Nigerian President Bola Tinubu announced plans to replace the naira with the US dollar was created and spread on social media platforms, requiring fact-checkers and news organizations to debunk the misinformation.
In 2023, a deepfake video circulated on Facebook in Nigeria falsely claiming that President Bola Tinubu planned to abolish the naira and adopt the US dollar as the national currency. The video appeared to show Arise News presenter Ojy Okpe reporting this false claim, but analysis revealed that the lip movements of both the anchor and president were out of sync, indicating digital manipulation. The video was captioned 'Nigeria planing to abolish the Naira and start using dollars. By President Tinubu. I am just a Messenger, don't kill the Messenger.' and appeared on multiple Facebook posts. Arise News issued a disclaimer on their official X (formerly Twitter) account, stating the video was the 'handiwork of Fake News peddlers' and completely dissociating themselves from the deepfake content. The news organization stamped a screenshot from the video with 'FAKE' and clarified that it was a deep fake video mimicking their What's Trending segment. Fact-checkers found no credible news reports from local or international organizations supporting such a statement from the president, noting that such a significant policy announcement would have made major headlines if it were genuine. The incident occurred during a period when Nigeria was experiencing currency crises, including naira shortages and declining international market value.
Domain classification, causal taxonomy, severity scores, and national security assessments were LLM-classified and may contain errors.
AI systems that inadvertently generate or spread incorrect or deceptive information, which can lead to inaccurate beliefs in users and undermine their autonomy. Humans that make decisions based on false beliefs can experience physical, emotional or material harms
AI system
Due to a decision or action made by an AI system
Intentional
Due to an expected outcome from pursuing a goal
Post-deployment
Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed
No population impact data reported.