TikTok is carrying AI protest videos of rallies that never happened

Euronews' fact-checking team has documented a run of AI-generated videos showing protests that never took place, spread on TikTok to viewers in at least six European countries, with the largest drawing more than 300,000 views.

The Cube, Euronews' verification desk, published its analysis on September 24. The videos depict crowds of thousands demonstrating in Portugal, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy and the UK against immigration, the state of the country or the current government, or in support of nationalist positions. None of the protests in those specific clips happened.

The clips borrow the furniture of real news. One presents a woman carrying a microphone bearing the logo of RTP, Portugal's state broadcaster, with graphics resembling those of the private channel SIC Noticias. The location is wrong as well: in the real city, Euronews notes, the Tagus River runs where the building is shown. RTP told The Cube that the journalist does not work for it and that it has no connection whatsoever with the video.

Some videos carry captions backing the far-right Alternative for Germany, and comment threads under them summon figures including Chega's Andre Ventura and the AfD's Alice Weidel. Many end by asking viewers to share the city they are watching from, which is engagement farming rather than reporting.

TikTok's own position is not ambiguous on paper. The platform's authenticity policy bans AI-generated content that is misleading about matters of public importance, and says unlabelled content may be removed, restricted or labelled depending on the harm it could cause. The videos are labelled as AI by TikTok, and several are still up.

"The fact that these videos remain online can mean a policy violation of TikTok's own rules, but also highlight a failure in the platform's detection tools' capacity," Bruna Martins dos Santos of WITNESS, an organisation that studies generative AI and deepfakes, told The Cube. She described the content as engagement bait that works because synthetic imagery connects to pre-existing political anxiety: "leading viewers to process the spectacle, the crowd size, flags, and chanting, long before questioning its authenticity."

Under the European Union's Digital Services Act, large platforms are also required to take effective measures against content that can damage civic discourse and electoral processes. Euronews notes that TikTok did not respond to its request for comment.

The backdrop is real unrest, which is what makes the fakes land. Spain saw large protests over the government's handling of the Ceuta border crisis, Germany saw demonstrations after the AfD's state election win in September, and thousands marched in Switzerland over climate policy.

The part worth copying for anyone making AI video: these clips are short, cheap and built to be believed rather than watched closely, and the only thing separating them from honest synthetic footage is a label the viewer has to notice.