Did Starmer impose a curfew in the UK? No, it’s just a fake TikTok video

The 61-second video of UK PM Keir Starmer would be shocking, if it were true. “The UK is set to introduce a nationwide curfew, beginning at 11pm each night,” he appears to say on one of thousands of TikTok videos of him posted in last six months. “Under the new rule, no one will be permitted to leave their home after 11pm without official authorisation.”Starmer never made any such policy or announcement. But thanks to AI, the PM in the short video sounded eerily like the real one. The fake video attracted over 430,000 views and inspired similar posts on X and Facebook. That video, and other similar ones, appears to have been taken down by the Chinese-owned social media company, which officially prohibits “fake authoritative sources or crisis events, or falsely shows public figures in certain contexts.“

But the clip was just one of 6,042 such videos, most featuring Starmer, identified by NewsGuard, a company that tracks online misinformation, between May and Dec. In a report, it said the videos were posted by accounts with names of fake, British-sounding news organisations like “BBB UK News” and “Daily Britain News.” Together, the accounts had more than 1 million followers when the report was issued. “It consistently emulates Starmer,” said Eva Maitland, senior analyst for Russian influence at NewsGuard. “It produces false or baseless claims that look bad for the Starmer govt, and they’re kind of created to create a strong response from people so that they’ll click on it.”Maitland said the videos do not appear to be part of a coordinated effort by foreign adversaries like Russia or the PM’s domestic political opponents to damage him in the eyes of voters. Rather, she said, they are likely being created by content producers whose primary goal is to make money by making videos that go viral.The widespread adoption of easy-to-use AI video generation tools, like OpenAI’s Sora, has dramatically increased the number of fake videos on TikTok and other social media platforms. The fake videos come at a particularly difficult time for the PM, who is already suffering from very low polling numbers. In one video, Starmer seems to announce new drivers licence laws that could strip many British people of their ability to drive legally in the country. Another video has Starmer’s faked voice declaring that new rules will allow the authorities to access any British person’s phone, along with its private data. In the immediate days after NewsGuard published its report on Dec 9, many of the videos were available on TikTok. By Dec 19, most appeared to have been removed from the platform. Howard said the use of AI in politics is increasing rapidly. “We know it’s internationally pervasive now,” he said. “Four of every five elections around the world now have AI-generated political junk that is unattributed and clearly misleading.“