Fact Check: Nirmala Sitharaman endorses an investment platform? No, video is a deepfake

Hyderabad: A video is circulating online with the claim that it shows the finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, endorsing an investment platform.

A screen recording of the video was posted on X with the caption, “If you get this video, then kindly report it. It is AI-generated and no such statements issued by @nsitharaman ji. Be cautious of fraudsters. Spread the word and save innocent citizens.” (Archive)

In the video, Nirmala Sitharaman is seen talking to the camera saying, “This opportunity will lead you to financial independence. Don’t miss it.”

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the claim is false. The video is a deepfake.

Using keyword searches, we did not find any news reports stating that the finance minister has endorsed an investment platform which leads to financial independence.

Using a reverse image search, we found that the visuals from the video match images uploaded by the official X handle of Nirmala Sitharaman on March 4. The caption stated that the finance minister addressed a post-budget webinar on ‘Regulatory, Investment and Ease of Doing Business Reforms’ via video conferencing.

We found footage from this webinar uploaded to YouTube on March 4 with the title, “Smt Nirmala Sitharaman’s address at post-budget webinar on ‘Regulatory, Investment and EODB reforms’.” We checked the entire video and found that the finance minister did not talk about any investment platform that leads to financial freedom in this webinar.

Upon analysing the video closely, we found that there are some discrepancies in the video, such as a monotonous delivery of lines and lip movements not syncing with the words being said. These are the usual signs of the presence of deepfake content.

Using the deepfake detection tool Deepware, we analysed the video and found that 3 out of 4 determinants concluded that the video contains deepfake content.

Previously, NewsMeter debunked claims that stated that finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has endorsed scam investment platforms. You can read the reports here and here.

The video is a deepfake of the finance minister. Therefore, NewsMeter concludes that the claim is false.