Tom Cruise TikTok Video Is a Deepfake
The Claim
A video depicts Tom Cruise doing a magic trick on TikTok.
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Emerging story
A series of videos released by a TikTok user called DeepTomCruise is widely circulating on social media platforms.
Each video shows 58-year-old actor Tom Cruise in different settings.
The first is him speaking to the camera saying he is going to show viewers a magic trick while holding up a coin between his fingers which he proceeds to make disappear.
Another video is of him playing golf.
The last video is of Cruise walking and taking a fall before laughing and getting back up. Although the videos have since been removed they were shared and viewed millions of times on various platforms.
Misbar’s Analysis
Despite the videos looking extremely realistic, Misbar's investigation found them to be ‘deep fakes.’
The account uploaded a series of videos, all deepfakes of Tom Cruise, with a cumulative view of 11 million on TikTok.
They have all been removed by Tiktok.
The lip-syncing in the video is off in some places and the voice isn’t quite right. Deepfakes are created using artificial intelligence called deep learning to make images, videos, or audio of fake events, special effects are used to create manipulated videos and images by swapping faces and cloning audio.
While deepfakes have been around since 2018 they are becoming increasingly sophisticated and difficult to detect.
Although they are not always malicious, deepfakes lend to spreading misinformation, state security, and democratic processes.
This can be countered through laws, education on detection when possible, system detection flagging using artificial intelligence, digital watermarks, and for public figures to have verified accounts on all social media.
Most countries also have their own imaging security systems to flag deepfakes.
Cruise was not on TikTok but following the deepfakes, he has made an account.
According to TikTok’s own terms of service, impersonation videos are a violation, they state ”you may not impersonate any person or entity”.
Given the context under which the video was released, Misbar confirms it is fake. Other examples of deepfake videos can be found here.
