Did they really say that?

Student council elections are next week. Then a video lands in your group chat.

In it, Ethan Brooks, one of the candidates, seems to say he doesn’t care what students think. He also seems to promise he’ll cancel several popular school events if he wins. The video looks real, and the voice sounds just like him.

Friends are upset. Someone shares it. Then someone else does. Within hours, it has spread across the grade.

Here’s what the chat doesn’t know. Ethan never said any of this. His opponent, Marcus Lee, made the clip with AI and posted it as if it were real. He wanted students to turn on Ethan. Ethan and Marcus are made up.

That makes it a deepfake (show definition). A deepfake is AI-made or AI-altered video, image, or audio. It shows a real person doing or saying something they didn’t.

This module covers how fakes are made, why people share them, and what to do before you do.