The touching viral video of Maherin Chowdhury, the teacher who died during the Milestone College plane crash tragedy while protecting her students, is fake, a Dhaka Stream investigation has found.
While students have praised Maherin (46) for her maternal attitude, earning plaudits on social media, the video of her delivering an emotional speech seems to be a deepfake.
In the fake video, she can be heard saying, "I promise you, if anything happens to your children, it will have to go through me. It is also our responsibility to protect your children. I will always be by their side in times of danger."
One of the first clues that the video is fake is a comparison of the actual video of the incident and the fake one with sound and visual edits.
In the original one, the way she pronounces her name is different from the fake one doing the rounds.
Also in the edited version, her hand first appears free of any signs of ageing, only to sport wrinkles after a few seconds.
Three seconds into the 17-second fake video, a finger is also seen to be unnaturally extended. Within a moment, an extra finger is identified, giving her left hand the appearance of having six fingers.
In addition, the statements made by Mahreen Chowdhury in the original video, found by searching for various keywords, do not match the statements made by her in the deepfake video.
Later, Stream asked FactWatch, an IFCN-accredited fact-checking organisation, for more specific information.
At the time, the organisation's assistant editor, Subhashish Das Ray Dip, told Stream that deep fake video verification technology showed that Maherin Chowdhury's video was created with artificial intelligence.
This was confirmed using a deep fake detection technology from the University of Buffalo.
The deepfake video has already crossed a million views.
Maherin Chowdhury died while undergoing treatment at the ICU of the National Burn Institute on Monday (May 21) night following the aircrash.
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