Beware, South Africans, videos of politician Fikile Mbalula have been taken out of context
IN SHORT: Several video clips of Fikile Mbalula, the secretary general of South Africa's largest political party, criticising party president Cyril Ramaphosa are deceptively edited. Mbalula was speaking about or quoting other people and actually defending Ramaphosa.
The African National Congress (ANC) is South Africa's largest political party. Its current president, and president of the country, is Cyril Ramaphosa. Its secretary general is Fikile Mbalula.
Africa Check was recently alerted to a video which seems to show Mbalula referring to Ramaphosa as a "liar" and an "agent of capital" in separate news interviews. Africa Check was asked to determine whether the video is a "deepfake", a fabricated video created or altered using artificial intelligence tools.
This video, or nearly identical videos, have been shared several times on TikTok and X, where they appeared as early as March 2024. In October, it was shared with Africa Check on WhatsApp.
The video has been edited to mislead, but AI was not involved. Instead, important context has been cut from the video to make it look like Mbalula is saying things he never did.
Real clips deceptively edited
The video cuts together multiple clips of Mbalula apparently speaking about Ramaphosa. These clips are from real news interviews, but they have been deceptively edited. An online search for recent interviews with Mbalula finds the videos from which these clips were taken.
In the first clip from the video, Mbalula appears to say: "Ramaphosa is a liar, he doesn't know what he's talking about, his speech is not written by him."
From the logo in the corner of the clip, we could tell that it was taken from a broadcast by isiXhosa news channel Iindaba Zethu, uploaded to YouTube here. Other broadcasts of the same event, a press conference following Ramaphosa's July 2024 opening of parliament address, are also available online.
At the press conference, Mbalula discussed John Hlophe, an impeached former judge who now serves as the deputy president of opposition party uMkhonto weSizwe (MK Party). Hlophe was impeached after he was found guilty of judicial misconduct for trying to influence the outcome of Jacob Zuma's corruption trial. Zuma, a former president of the ANC and South Africa, recently broke with the party to become the president of the MK Party.
Discussing Hlophe's reasons for joining the MK Party, Mbalula accused Hlophe and the party of being motivated only by "grievance".
Mbalula said: "Even when [Hlophe] speaks he's very angry. He's very angry. 'Ramaphosa is a liar, he doesn't know what he's talking about, his speech is not written by him.' What does that have to do with the content of taking South Africa forward?"
Mbalula is clearly paraphrasing Hlophe here, and criticising, rather than endorsing, what he presents as Hlophe's views of Ramaphosa. The video shared on social media has been edited to deceive viewers.
Mbalula in fact defending Ramaphosa
The video also includes clips clearly taken from a different interview. In these, Mbalula stands among a crowd of people wearing ANC memorabilia and makes comments, including "Ramaphosa must go" and "Yena [he] is a beneficiary of BEE, he was made by capital and capital have chosen him. So he's a puppet of capital". Once again, these clips have been edited to change the meaning of what Mbalula was actually saying.
The text along the bottom of the screen suggests that these clips were originally broadcast by national news broadcaster SABC News, and the original interview is easy to find on the SABC News YouTube channel. The person that Mbalula referred to as "a puppet of capital" in that broadcast was not Ramaphosa, but Roger Jardine.
Jardine, a business executive and former chair of financial group FirstRand Group, had launched a political party named Change Starts Now on 10 October 2023, the same day that Mbalula spoke to the media. (Change Starts Now eventually withdrew from the 2024 national election.)
Later in the broadcast, Mbalula turned to the topic of the MK Party. He said: "It is alleged again that former leaders or leaders of the ANC are involved with the formation of this party for the sole reason of getting rid of Ramaphosa, because they say that 'Ramaphosa must go' and all of that."
Mbalula went on to defend Ramaphosa, and criticise ANC members who showed support for the MK Party. Once again, deceptive editing has been used to misrepresent what Mbalula actually said.
Not everything is AI
Social media users had called the accuracy of this video into question, in many of the instances Africa Check found of it online. Most, however, claimed that the video had been altered or created using "artificial intelligence" or AI. Some did correctly identify it as deceptive editing.
Examples of deepfakes, similar to this video do exist. Africa Check has debunked videos that claimed to show US politicians and public figures weighing in on South African politics. But these videos often contain obvious clues that they are inauthentic.
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AI-generated speech typically sounds stilted and awkward, and AI-generated video often includes visual errors, or doesn't sync up well with audio. Some particularly sophisticated deepfakes are difficult to spot, but these are uncommon.
As we saw in our coverage of the 2024 South African elections, AI-generated videos and images are not yet common channels for false information. However, there are many other ways in which AI can contribute to misinformation, and focusing only on AI-generated media can distract from these other forms of deception.
Being too quick to label something AI-generated, or overstating the ability of generative AI to deceive, can play into a tactic called the liar's dividend. This describes cases in which a public figure tries to distance themselves from their own past statements or actions by claiming that any evidence of such gaffs has been faked.
It is encouraging that awareness of AI-generated misinformation is high, and that may be one reason it has been uncommon. But it's equally important to be on the lookout for other means of disinformation, like deceptive editing.
