Los Angeles is bracing for strong hurricane-force winds this week which are expected to hamper ongoing efforts to contain raging wildfires that have killed at least 24 people in the past week and destroyed hundreds of homes and structures. Meanwhile, California Governor Gavin Newsom said there were “likely to be a lot more” deaths as dozens remain unaccounted for in the raging inferno. The wildfires are raging in the US and amidst this a video of singer Taylor Swift is being widely shared on social media platforms.
The video is shared, with claims stating that even non-Muslims are openly declaring that the fire in Los Angeles and California is God’s punishment and God’s revenge. The claim further states, that this American woman considers this fire to be the result of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and American financial aid. We found that the video was made using AI tools during the investigation.
Claim:
X user Husain Ahmad shared the video with the viral claim.
Other users too are sharing the video with the same claims.
Investigation:
We started our investigation by downloading the video and converting it to an audio file.
We then uploaded the audio file to the InVid tool’s audio detection and found that the 41-second audio clip was made using a voice cloning technique.
True Media’s detector too suggested that there was substantial evidence of manipulation in the video.
It was through a reverse image search that we found a clip from the episode when singer Taylor Swift appeared on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.
It was at around 4 mins and 10 seconds when you see the visuals from the viral video but a completely different audio, where Swift was seen talking about her struggle with the rehearsals.
Conclusion: A viral video claiming that Taylor Swift described the Los Angeles and California wildfires as punishment for the Gaza genocide is AI-generated. The video was created using voice cloning technology. The claim and the video are fake.
