AI video misleads about Indonesian minister's remarks on educator salaries

  • Published on August 26, 2025 at 06:38
  • 4 min read
  • By AFP Indonesia
An AI-made video of Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati calling teachers the country's "burden" has surfaced online after she spoke about state funding for educators. She has branded the circulating clip a "hoax", while a review of her full speech found she made no such remarks.

"Teachers are the burden of the nation," Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati purportedly says in a Facebook video posted on August 17, 2025.

The six-second clip, which was viewed more than 348,000 times, is captioned: "The services of the teachers are no longer valuable in her eyes, even though the teachers educate the nation's children."

"In her eyes, they are considered a burden to the country... what do you think... are the teachers across Indonesia going to remain silent...?"

The clip circulated days after Sri Mulyani spoke about the government's budget allocations for teachers and lecturers during a speech at the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) on August 7 (archived link).

The welfare of Indonesian educators is a frequent topic of heated discussion in the country, with local reports highlighting how some have to take on second jobs to supplement their income (archived here, here and here).

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Screenshot of the false Facebook post captured on August 21, 2025, with a red X added by AFP

The same video was also shared in similar Instagram, TikTok and X posts.

"You are the nation's burden, teachers are the unsung heroes," reads a comment on one of the posts.

Another says: "You are taught by teachers but you have no respect for them."

But there have been no official reports of Sri Mulyani calling teachers "the burden of the nation".

reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the falsely shared clip shows it was made using Google's AI tools.

The ability to detect AI-generated images is based on Google's SynthID technology, which was launched by its DeepMind AI lab in 2023 (archived here and here).

A watermark for Google's video-generation platform Veo can also be seen in the falsely shared video's bottom-right corner (archived link).

Veo allows users to create AI-generated videos up to eight seconds long (archived link).

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Screenshot from Google Images with the AI label highlighted by AFP (left) and the Veo watermark on the clip magnified by AFP (right)

Sri Mulyani’s clothing and the background in the falsely shared video match photos and footage of her speech at the ITB, which was streamed live on the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, and Technology's official YouTube channel (archived here and here).

The finance minister's speech can be viewed between the 47:24 and 1:07:38 marks.

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Screenshot comparison of the falsely shared video (left) and the video posted by the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, and Technology (right)

"The second cluster [of the education budget] is for teachers and lecturers. This covers expenses ranging from salaries to performance allowances. Many on my social media comment, 'Oh, being a lecturer or teacher isn't appreciated because the salary isn't high'," she says.

"This is also one of the challenges for the state finances. Should everything be funded by the state, or should there be participation from the public?" she adds but did not elaborate further.

Sri Mulyani also refuted the claim she called teachers a burden on her official Instagram account and called the circulating video a "hoax" (archived link).

Her August 19 post reads: "The video is a deepfake and incompletely excerpted from my speech at the Indonesian Science, Technology, and Industry Convention Forum at ITB on August 7."

The finance minister has been a recurring target of misinformation, including false claims that used AI-generated videos.

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