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There is a manipulated situation on social networks daily topics-Interview distributed to raise awareness against public broadcasting in Germany. The article is actually about Poland.
A video has been making the rounds on social networks for a few weeks that supposedly… daily topics-Post shows. You can see an interview in which the public media in Germany are portrayed as partisan and close to the state. Lies, hatred and agitation against minorities and the opposition were spread there, as the person interviewed says.
“Who believes that? GEZ stations want to start reporting independently. At least they admit that they are not independent” – with these words the video is distributed on TikTok, among other places. But this is wrong for several reasons. On the one hand, the interview was manipulated, and on the other hand, it is not about Germany at all. Correctiv has also already reported on this.
The original video is about Poland
The daily topics-Conversation shows presenter Jessy Wellmer and the ARD-Correspondent in Warsaw, Kristin Joachim. The original video was released on December 11th of last year. This is about the change of power in Poland after the elections there in mid-October. There, a coalition led by the new head of government Donald Tusk replaced the right-wing nationalist PiS party in power. After a report on the topic, Wellmer asked the correspondent about the current situation in Poland.
When asked how the new government in Poland wants to overcome the political divide in the country, Joachim answers literally: “It won’t be easy. But one way could be, and Donald Tusk wants to use the public media very quickly “To reform, to reorganize, to make it independent again, to have balanced reporting again. Because the PiS, above all, had expanded the TVP television station into a government propaganda organ in the last eight years of its government.”
Joachim continues: “Every evening there were lies, there were untruths, there was hatred and agitation against minorities, against the opposition. And all of this led to, was an important part of, why society here in the country is so divided .”
Cuts manipulate statement
However, in the video distributed on social networks, the passages that suggest the context of Poland were edited out. The text then simply reads: “It won’t be easy. But one way could be to reform the public media, to reorganize it, to make it independent again, to have balanced reporting again. There were lies every evening, There were untruths, there was hatred and agitation against minorities, against the opposition. And all of this led to, and was an important part of, why society here in the country is so divided.”
At the end of the video there is a collage of excerpts from opinion pieces on public broadcasting on the topic of corona vaccinations. This creates a supposed connection between Joachim’s statement about hatred and agitation against minorities and the unvaccinated as those affected.
“The interview was obviously edited together with a distorted meaning,” says Marcus Bornheim, editor-in-chief of ARD current. “Colleague Joachim is our correspondent in Warsaw and talks about Polish domestic politics and the role of broadcasting in Poland.” All of these references were removed in order to obscure the core of the interview. “The interview never took place in this form. The interview had nothing to do with the situation in Germany,” said Bornheim.
In his opinion, the video is intended to damage the reputation of public broadcasting. “The underlying goal is of course to divide society, since it is no longer about facts, but only emotions are to be served,” says Bornheim.
Many more manipulated videos in circulation
It has happened several times in the past that contributions from public media are manipulated or taken out of context. For example, in October last year a video was distributed that demonstrated the neutrality of the ARD– Reporting on the war in the Middle East should be questioned. In it, statements from the released Israeli hostage Yocheved Lifschitz on two different issues were juxtaposed to give the impression that the public broadcasters were reporting one-sidedly in favor of Israel.
Also a daily topics-Comment from the head and moderator of the political magazine Monitor, Georg Restle, has been published repeatedly in abbreviated form since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression on Ukraine. So only the part of his opinion piece in which Restle accuses the Ukrainian military of terrorizing the civilian population is uploaded. Pro-Russian actors in particular use this excerpt to discredit Ukraine.
In the original post, which was published in July 2014, However, Restle first addresses the situation in eastern Ukraine at the time. He also says that Western politicians rightly called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to end support for the pro-Russian terrorist militias. All of this is hidden in the shortened video on social networks.
AI-generated fakes are on the rise
Fake, AI-generated audio or video files that supposedly come from reputable news channels are also spreading again and again. This is how audio files created with AI were created by daily NewsSpeakers played at demonstrations in Dresden, for example, which gave the impression that daily News apologize for alleged lies in the reporting. The State Security Service and the Dresden Public Prosecutor’s Office are now investigating this matter. According to the judiciary, there is an initial suspicion of defamation and insult, and in one case it is also about sedition.
The credibility of news anchors is also abused for fake investment recommendations, so-called scams. For example, AI-generated videos were made by tagesschau24Spokesman André Schünke or “ZDF aktuell-journal” spokesman Christian Sievers made the rounds in which they supposedly advertised dubious financial investments. News anchors are often used because there is a lot of material from them that can be used to produce AI-generated fakes.
According to Bornheim, the use of AI has made it possible to spread manipulated videos related to the daily News and daily topics increased. “We now receive reports of manipulated videos or audios almost every day daily News-Content,” says Bornheim. “We have reached a completely new level in the age of AI.”
ARD current However, we are taking vehement action against this, says Bornheim. “We give all this information to our lawyers, who then check what legal steps need to be taken. It’s not always easy and sometimes takes time, but we’re not letting up.”
Question plausibility
Since it will generally become easier to produce fakes with the help of artificial intelligence in the future, it can be assumed that these will continue to increase. In many cases it is not so easy to distinguish between real and fake audio or video files, which is why it is particularly important to check the plausibility of the content. You can also check on the respective news site whether, for example, a video has actually been published and whether the content matches.
If you are unsure whether the material is serious and authentic, you can always check whether there are fact checks. Google offers this a special search by keywords and languages.