AI video of old woman demanding seat from disabled youth misleads South Korean users
- Published on October 27, 2025 at 05:10
- 2 min read
- By SHIM Kyu-Seok, AFP South Korea
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With intergenerational conflict emerging as a growing social fault line in South Korea -- one of the world’s fastest-ageing nations -- a viral video apparently showing an elderly woman scolding a disabled young man for not giving up his subway seat racked up millions of views on social media. But the clip is in fact AI-generated, featuring digital artefacts inconsistent with any genuine scene on public transport.
The clip -- viewed almost 2.8 million times -- was shared on TikTok on October 11 with the caption "educating an old person on the subway".
It depicts an elderly woman shouting at a young commuter to stand up. When the man lifts his trouser leg to reveal a prosthetic limb, she says, "I didn’t know that" and walks away.
South Korea has one of the world’s fastest-ageing populations, with people aged 65 and older expected to make up nearly half the country by 2070, according to government data (archived link).
Conflicts between generations have increasingly played out in daily life -- including on public transport, where older riders often expect younger commuters to yield seats (archived link).
An identical clip was also shared on YouTube, attracting more than 800,000 views and comments that indicated many users believed the footage to be genuine. The video has also circulated in the Philippines.
"She seems perfectly healthy to be able to scream like that -- she should know her place," one commenter wrote.
Another said: "Some old people have no common sense whatsoever."
But the footage is AI-generated.
A close review reveals multiple telltale signs of digital fabrication, including subway handrails and poles that are warped and irregularly placed.
Some bystanders' faces are distorted and unnaturally asymmetrical.
A keyword search using text seen in the video's watermark led to the YouTube channel hosting the video, which features dozens of similar AI-generated moral skits showing fabricated public confrontations (archived link).
The creator did not respond to AFP’s request for comment or specify what tools were used.
Searches by AFP found no credible reports or footage of an actual subway confrontation matching the viral clip.
AFP has previously debunked other AI-generated images and videos that exploit sensitive social and political divisions in South Korea.
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