Pro-Taiwan AI video shared as real incident online
- Published on May 11, 2026 at 06:13
- 3 min read
- By Livia LIU, AFP Hong Kong
An AI-generated video of a Chinese delivery driver supposedly shouting "a democratic Taiwan is the future for Chinese people" in Shanghai has spread in posts claiming it shows a genuine incident, as Beijing has ramped up pressure on the self-ruled island it claims as its territory. The clip was first shared by a YouTube account that frequently posts synthetic content about Taiwanese politics and was flagged as AI-generated by the video platform.
The video of a man dressed in a yellow jacket holding a Taiwanese flag in front of Shanghai's iconic Oriental Pearl TV Tower along the Bund was shared on X on May 3, 2026, alongside a simplified Chinese caption that claims the rider for food delivery service Meituan was arrested after his stunt.
"We no longer want to be exploited. A democratic Taiwan is the only future for Chinese people," the man appears to shout, after which uniformed officers detain him as he yells, "I am just telling the truth".
Traditional Chinese characters reading "light of Taiwan" can be seen on the video's top-right corner.
Beijing has ramped up pressure on Taiwan, which it claims as its territory and opposes the self-governed island's participation in international organisations and exchanges with other countries (archived link).
China has sworn to take Taiwan and has not ruled out using force, ramping up military pressure around the island in recent years. It conducts near-daily deployments of fighter jets and warships near the island and regular large-scale military drills.
Taiwan has accused China of trying to stop president Lai Ching-te's visit to Eswatini by applying "intense pressure" to the Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar to revoke overflight permits for his original trip, which had been scheduled for April 22-26 and was cancelled at the last minute (archived link).
Lai ended up using the Eswatini king's plane to make the journey in early May.
The 10-second clip had been shared widely in January on multiple social media platforms before reappearing in April and May on X, Facebook, Threads and Instagram.
However, the video is AI-generated.
A keyword search found that the earliest version of the video was shared on YouTube on January 4 by a pro-Taiwanese account.
The video was labelled as "altered or synthetic content" by YouTube.
The YouTuber regularly publishes AI-generated short videos of Taiwan politics, including street interviews and clips showing people holding Taiwanese flags in mainland Chinese cities (archived links here and here).
An AFP analysis of the video found multiple visual inconsistencies typical of synthetic content. At the start of the clip, the man is clearly holding a flag. When the police officer approaches, the flag appears to drop to the ground. Yet in the final frames, the flag inexplicably reappears in the man’s hands, with no visible action showing its return.
The false posts claim the man is a delivery rider of Meituan, one of China's biggest delivery platforms. But the logo on the man's uniform does not match Meituan's official kangaroo logo (archived link).
The video is purportedly filmed at the Bund, Shanghai's iconic waterfront. However, the skyline in the clip does not match the street view imagery of the location (archived link).
An analysis of the video using Hive Moderation, an AI detection tool, confirmed it was 99.9 percent likely to have been generated by AI.
AFP has previously debunked other misinformation about cross-strait relations.
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