Video of U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez explaining meaning of 'ceasefire' is altered

By: Praveen Kumar
November 29 2023

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A video clip of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been widely shared on social media, which has been digitally altered to make it sound like she explained the meaning of ceasefires wrongly. (Source: X/Screenshot/Modified by Logically Facts)

What's the claim?

An approximately 18-second-long video clip has been shared on social media, purportedly showing U.S. Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, also known as AOC, incorrectly explaining what a ceasefire is. She can be heard saying, "Ceasefire means that somebody sees a fire. It could be any kind of fire. It could be a big fire, asmall fire, a bonfire, or even a candle flame. It just matters that somebody sees a fire - that's why we call it a ceasefire." Several social media users have criticized the politician based on the viral clip.

This clip has been shared on X and gained hundreds of thousands of views. Archived posts can be found here and here.

This video has gone viral on X with massive engagement. (Source: X/Screenshots)

The video has also been shared on TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram.

The deepfake video has also been shared on Facebook and TikTok. (Source: Facebook/TikTok/Screenshots)

However, this is a deepfake video altered using AI tools. The unaltered clip shows that Ocasio-Cortez discussed the U.S. defense budget and weapons.

What we found

We noticed a watermark that says "CP3MEME" in the viral video on Ocasio-Cortez's right side. We traced the viral video back to CP3MEME's YouTube, Facebook, X, and Instagram accounts and found that the viral video was posted on all these platforms on November 18. The video's description on YouTube reads, "AOC explains a cease fire... #deepfake #aoc #memes #comedy," and the account description on these platforms says the account is a "Meme Making Droid." This content creator often posts similar videos.

C3PMeme often posts deepfake video clips of politicians for comedic purposes. (Source: YouTube/Instagram/X/Screenshots/Modified by Logically Facts)

We found the original clip of Ocasio-Cortez in the same brown outfit in a livestream on Instagram on October 23. She talks about the need for ceasefires in Palestine concerning the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. The video is over 33 minutes long and is available on her official Instagram account with the caption, "Updates on #CeasefireNOW. Call your member of Congress. Link in bio."

At the 12:45 mark of the Instagram video, Ocasio-Cortez's gestures are precisely the same as in the viral video. However, at this time, she spoke about the U.S. defense budget and weapons. 

She says, "Every year, the United States passes a defense budget, and what we hear consistently in this defense budget is how precise weaponry is, how advanced technology is, how targeted and sophisticated all of our military equipment is, and yet what we are seeing is indiscriminate, and um, I know that even though in my day-to-day job, I'm in an extreme minority on (ceasefire), in Congress, I'm actually in a wide majority of the American public because polling was released on Friday or late last week that showed 66 percent of the American public supports a ceasefire..." 

Original livestream video from Ocasio-Cortez's official Instagram account(Source: Instagram)

The viral video was created by editing this audio from the full video and digitally replacing it with comments that appear as Ocasio-Cortez does not understand the meaning of "ceasefire." 

There are several tell-tale signs that the video is a deepfake made with AI tools - Ocasio-Cortez's mouth movements don't match the audio added to the viral video and are different from that seen in the original video. At a certain point in this part of the full-length video, she can be seen putting out her tongue for a brief moment while speaking, but the viral clip does not include this slight movement, while all the other minute movements, such as the head tilt and hand gestures are the same.

The verdict

A video clip taken from an Instagram live by Ocasio-Cortez, in which she talked about the need for a ceasefire in Palestine in relation to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, has been digitally altered to make it appear she gave a wholly incorrect explanation of the meaning of the word ceasefires. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false and the video as fake.