Concerns Sparked by Deepfake Audio of Philippine President Urging Military Action Against China

The manipulated audio features a deep fake voice of Marcos Jr, where he purportedly indicates to his military to intervene if China poses a threat to the Philippines. He adds that he cannot tolerate further harm to Filipinos by Beijing. Deepfake technology involves the use of artificial intelligence to replace aspects of a person’s appearance or voice with those of another individual in synthetic media.

“We cannot compromise even a single individual just to protect what rightfully belongs to us,” says the voice in the faked audio, which was reportedly released via a YouTube channel with thousands of subscribers. The audio was accompanied by a slideshow of photos showing Chinese vessels in the South China Sea, the reported. *South China Morning Post *

On Tuesday night, the Presidential Community Communications Office (PCO) issued a public warning about the manipulated media and confirmed that it was entirely fake.

“Marcos Jnr,” the PCO said in a statement. No such directive exists nor has been made,” it added. “We are also closely coordinating and working with government agencies and relevant private sector stakeholders to actively address the proliferation and malicious use of video and audio deepfakes and other generative AI content,” it said.