NBC News was the first U.S. network to pull the video early on Friday, after receiving information suggesting it was not authentic.
This note will be updated in due course,” it said in a statement posted under the pulled video.
The footage was then licensed by Chinese State TV network CCTV and a number of other viral video distributors.
Concerns over the footage come amid growing challenges for news organizations around AI-generated video and authenticating real footage.
With a question mark hanging over the authenticity of the video, the veracity of the story is also being re-investigated.
updated to reflect other websites that pull video at 10:30 PT. Many news websites have removed a dramatic video that purports to show a Chinese paraglider surviving an impromptu 8,500-meter (27,000-foot) ascent in below-freezing temperatures due to suspicions that it was artificial intelligence (AI) generated.
The video has been shared on the websites of newspapers like The Guardian and The New York Times, as well as by the BBC in the UK, TF1 in France, and thousands of other news outlets around the world in recent days.
NBC News was the first U.S. S. . After learning that the video was not real, the network decided to remove it early on Friday.
NBC News has discovered that some of the footage that was shown in our initial coverage—which was supplied by the Chinese state broadcaster CCTV and disseminated by Reuters—was artificial intelligence (AI) generated. We have taken down this video and will keep reporting on the story’s accuracy. It stated in a statement under the removed video that “this note will be updated in due course.”.
A few hours later, the BBC also removed the video, stating: “An earlier version of this article included a video of footage shared on Chinese social media and broadcast on state television purporting to show the paraglider’s flight.”. After concerns regarding its authenticity were raised, this has been taken down while we conduct additional research. “.”.
A previous post that had included the video was also updated by CNN, which added the following paragraph: “China Central Television (CCTV) shared a video on Tuesday that showed Peng drifting in the clouds with ice covering his face and clothing. CNN is examining the video’s authenticity, but some of it seems to have been artificial intelligence (AI) generated. Peng Yujiang has not replied to our request for more information. “”.
As per the initial report that surfaced earlier this week, the video purports to depict the terrifying ascent of 55-year-old paraglider Peng Yujiang, whose equipment got caught in an updraft called a “cloud suck.”.
The video, which shows Peng fighting vigorous winds before appearing dazed and frostbitten above the clouds, was initially uploaded to the Chinese video-sharing app Douyin, which is the equivalent of TikTok in that country.
CCTV, the Chinese State TV network, and several other viral video distributors subsequently licensed the footage.
Concerns about the video coincide with news organizations’ increasing difficulties in verifying authentic footage and dealing with AI-generated video.
The authenticity of the video is under scrutiny, and the story’s veracity is also being reexamined. NBC said in a different story that it had contacted a number of Peng-related social media accounts but had not heard back.
The same story clarified why doubts had been expressed regarding the video’s authenticity after it was discovered that it had been cropped to remove a logo for Doubao AI, an AI tool developed by ByteDance, the owner of TikTok and Douyin.
CCTV is available for comment, but Deadline has not heard back.
