Video showing cruise ship spilling waste into the sea isn’t real

A video shared online with claims it depicts a “luxury cruise ship” discharging waste directly into the sea isn’t real, and was almost certainly generated by artificial intelligence (AI).

The footage circulating on social media shows two angles of what seems to be a cruise liner, with dark brown sludge pouring out of openings at the front and what appears to be the back.

A caption shared alongside the video says: “A massive luxury cruise ship was caught on camera releasing what appears to be waste water directly into the sea!

“Is this the price we pay for luxury vacations? Environmentalists are outraged, and this footage is going viral.”

While to some the footage might seem obviously fake, many on social media appear to have taken it at face value and believed it is real. Facebook users commenting on the video said it was “awful” and “disgusting” and that the cruise ship owners should face “triple fines”.

Content which is generated by AI, often referred to as ‘AI slop’, can be unconvincing to some but still catch out others, particularly more casual internet users. We’ve written more about why we fact check certain claims on social media in this blog.

How do we know the footage isn’t real?

A big clue that this clip is almost certainly AI-generated is the presence of an animated OpenAI watermark which appears in the bottom right corner of the video several seconds in. Content created with the company’s video generation tool Sora contains this watermark.

A Facebook page the video was shared by also features a disclaimer stating that “content on this page may use AI tools (e.g. voice, image, or video generation)” and that “viewer discretion is advised”.

And while we can’t completely rule out the footage having been created in some other way, with the watermark added later, there are a number of discrepancies in the way the physics of the environment and the ship is depicted in the clips which tell us it isn’t genuine.

For instance, the waste portal shown in the first half of the clip is not in line with, or within the same perspective as, the rest of the prow of the ship.

And in the second part of the video, there is a bubbling whirlpool of waste in the sea which does not appear to be connected to that shown pouring out of the ship—and which seems to move at a different speed to the supposed cruise liner.

The shape of the ship itself also appears unusual, and it has no visible identifying markings.

Under the rules of the International Maritime Organisation, while cruise ships can legally discharge some waste into the ocean, they must go through treatment facilities on board the ship before anything is released, and waste can only be discharged when ships are away from shore and travelling at at least four knots. Some larger cruise ships also have incineration facilities for treated solid waste.