Audio of South Korean president launching election probe was computer-generated: experts

A video has been shared in multiple social media posts in South Korea that misleadingly claim it shows President Yoon Suk Yeol announcing an investigation into "rigged" parliamentary elections in 2020. The video is in fact an advert for a film about the unproven fraud allegations, and alters genuine footage of the president speaking about meeting foreign leaders. AI experts told AFP that Yoon's voice appears to have been replaced by an audio deepfake.

"Yoon Suk Yeol -- we will investigate election fraud," reads the opening line of a lengthy Facebook post shared here on November 26, 2023.

The post links to a YouTube video, and the thumbnail preview shows a close-up of facemask-wearing Yoon between overlaid Korean-language text that says "[Yoon] says he will investigate election fraud!" and "We will investigate election fraud."

The country's then-ruling Democratic party won a landslide victory in the 2020 poll, securing an absolute majority in the 300-member National Assembly.

Two years later, Yoon beat the Democratic party's Lee Jae-myung by a razor-thin margin in the country's presidential election.

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Screenshot of the misleading Facebook post, captured on January 12, 2024

Similar posts linked to the same video elsewhere on Facebook here, here and here.

But as of January 15, AFP could not find any official reports of Yoon ordering an investigation into the elections.

The video is in fact an advert for a film about unproven fraud allegations surrounding the 2020 legislative elections, and was altered from genuine footage of the president speaking to reporters in November 2022.

Film advert

The YouTube video, which has been viewed more than 10,000 times, was shared on November 23, 2023 and appears to show Yoon explaining why he had decided to launch an investigation into supposed irregularities with the 2020 elections.

In the video, Yoon appears to say he was convinced the elections might have been rigged after watching "Wae, the cartel" – a film co-produced by former People Power Party lawmaker Min Kyung-wook.

The video appears to show Yoon repeating some of the alleged irregularities highlighted in Min's film before concluding: "There is no way you cannot say the April 15 general election was not a fraud."

It then cuts to a frame that reads, "It was all a dream..." followed by a poster for the film.

The film's official website links to the YouTube channel that posted the video, describing the channel as helping to raise awareness "both online and offline".

South Korea's National Election Commission released an infographic specifically addressing the points raised in the video in December 2021 (archived link).

The commission added that none of the "irregularities" are evidence of election fraud and were just printing errors caused by mechanical failures or by election workers.

The same allegations were also dismissed by South Korea's Supreme Court in July 2022, after Min's bid to overturn the results of his election race (archived link).

The court said such inconsistencies in the ballot "do not prove that early voting ballots were fabricated en masse" (archived link). 

Altered video

A keyword search on Yoon's official YouTube channel found the footage used in the altered video corresponds to footage of an impromptu press conference held at the entrance of the presidential office on November 18, 2022 (archived link). 

The video titled "61st doorstepping" shows Yoon wearing a mask and a yellow tie that matches his appearance in the altered video.

The original video shows Yoon talking about his participation in the ASEAN summit in Singapore, a trilateral summit between South Korea, the United States and Japan held on the sidelines, as well as visits by foreign leaders from Saudi Arabia, the Netherlands and Spain to South Korea.

Below are screenshot comparisons of the altered video shared on YouTube (left) and footage from Yoon's press conference (right):

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Screenshot comparisons of the altered video shared on YouTube (left) and footage from Yoon's press conference (right)

This press conference was also notable for being the 61st and last time Yoon engaged in what local media and his office called "doorstepping" press conferences, which he began shortly after his inauguration in May 2022 in a bid to increase transparency (archived link).

The event was also shot by broadcasters KBS and MBC, and their footage also shows Yoon made no mention of elections (archived links here and here). 

Audio deepfake

Jung Sou-hwan, an expert in AI-generated audio at Soongsil University's College of Information Technology, told AFP he detected audio manipulation in the clip (archived link).

"It appears part of the audio has been computer-generated and possibly melded with a genuine voice of someone doing an impression [of Yoon]," Jung said on January 10.

"The video's creators also seem to have selected footage of [Yoon] wearing a mask to hide the fact that the audio would not match the video's lip movements." 

Yonsei University's Kwon Taekyoung also found the audio to be forgeries based on tests using deepfake detection models (archived link).

"Our models found both fake and real qualities in the footage, leading us to conclude that the video is real but the audio attached to it is a deepfake," he said on January 9.

AFP has previously debunked multiple false claims surrounding allegations of fraud in the 2020 South Korean parliamentary elections, including here, here and here.