What was claimed
Videos show migrants in small boats attempting to cross the English Channel or arriving in the UK.
Our verdict
False. The videos aren’t real and were created with AI.
More AI videos of small boat crossings circulate on Facebook
Videos being shared on Facebook, claiming to show illegal migrants arriving in the UK by small boat are AI-generated.
One video appears to show six men in life jackets sitting on a small boat that is floating alongside a larger Border Force vessel emblazoned with Union Jacks. Text on the video says: “Breaking report. Official ‘Good Morning’ welcome for illegal crossings.’ Just 5 more additions to the UK taxpayer’s bill”.
Both the audio and the visuals of the video contain SynthID, a digital watermark added to content made or altered with Google’s AI tools.
Another video, seemingly showing men in small boats floating alongside UK border force vessels, was also flagged as being made with Google AI, as were two other videos, both seemingly showing men disembarking from a small boat on a beach and being directed by police officers.
There are some visual clues that these are AI-generated too. The text alongside the second boat reads “Burder force” in this video, for example, while the life jacket of a man jumping out of the boat in this video changes.
Text overlaid on one of these videos says “UK BORDERS. The Reality Uk Media Won’T Show You” [sic], while the Facebook caption says: “Another day, another boat landing on the UK coast. While legal processes take years, the English Channel remains wide open. What’s the solution to this?”.
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While hundreds of people have crossed the Channel by small boat in recent days, these videos are not authentic.
Before sharing clips such as these, first consider whether they come from a verifiable and trustworthy source. Our guide to spotting AI content, and toolkit on how to identify bad information, can help you do this.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as altered because these videos aren’t real and were created with AI.