Video of protesters hoisting Palestine flag on Eiffel Tower is AI-generated

A video of people hoisting two flags at the top of the Eiffel Tower has gone viral. An X user shared it and wrote, “Protests are ongoing in France over the cost of living, education and public services. But the Palestinian flag is hoisted on the Eiffel Tower, not the French flag. George Soros Foundation, the Open Society Foundation, funds groups working on Palestine.”As protests against declining public services and rising living costs have spiralled into riots across France, public buildings have reportedly been targeted, boutiques and supermarkets looted, and police vehicles and officers attacked.India Today Fact Check found that this video is AI-generated. OUR PROBEWe carefully analysed the video and noticed several discrepancies. While people sharing the clip claimed that only the Palestinian flag was hoisted, the flag at the top actually resembles Jordan’s — though not totally. Inconsistencies like these are common in synthetic media.We observed distortions in the tower’s grills. The video also shows a person hanging by a rope, which is unlikely at a height of over 1,000. We then tested the video using several AI detection tools. SightEngine and HiveModeration concluded that the video was AI-generated with 72 and 62.6 per cent scores, respectively. Nvidia concluded it was synthetic with a 48.8 per cent score. And Meta's detection tool found AI signatures in the video.We searched for reports of the Palestinian and Jordanian flags hoisted on the Eiffel Tower by protestors in the ongoing protests but did not find anything credible.However, an Al Jazeera report from May 15 said that on the 78th anniversary of the Nakba — the mass displacement of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war — members of Extinction Rebellion France, an environmental and social activism group, displayed a Palestinian flag on the Eiffel Tower. The visuals of that incident do not match the viral video; it shows the flag on the first level of the tower, while the viral one shows it at the top.Therefore, we concluded that the viral video is synthetic.- Ends