Japanese Prime Minister Kishida’s fake video spreads on social media…contains sexual content

A fake video of Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, created using artificial intelligence (AI), is being widely shared on social media, reported the Yomiuri Shimbun on December 4th.

The video, which appears to show Prime Minister Kishida, dressed in a suit, making sexual remarks, displays the logo of the local private broadcaster Nippon Television (Nittere) news program.

It also includes the words ‘LIVE’ and ‘BREAKING NEWS,’ giving the impression that the Prime Minister’s remarks are being broadcast as urgent news.

The original 3 minute and 43 second fake video was first posted this summer on the internet video channel ‘Nico Nico.’

A shortened 30-second version of the video was posted on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) on December 2nd, and it garnered over 2.32 million views in just one day.

A 25-year-old man from Osaka admitted to the Yomiuri Shimbun that he used generative AI to create and upload the fake video of Prime Minister Kishida, stating he did it “for fun.”

The man said he used AI to learn the Prime Minister’s voice from publicly available videos of Kishida’s press conferences and Liberal Democratic Party convention speeches to create the fake voice.

He also used Nittere news programs that covered Kishida’s online press conferences.

Nittere responded, “It is absolutely unacceptable to misuse Nittere’s broadcasts and program logos in fake videos. We will respond appropriately as necessary.”

It has been revealed that this man has also been creating and uploading fake videos of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe since last year.

Fake videos, photos, and articles of famous politicians and celebrities have become a problem in many countries, not just Japan.

In March, a ‘fake photo’ of Donald Trump, a prominent Republican presidential candidate, being arrested and taken away in Manhattan, New York, spread on the internet, which was also created using AI.