Macron hears about the “coup” from Africa<\/strong><\/p>\nThe scale of the misinformation became clear when Macron himself was contacted by an African head of state.<\/p>\n
“One of my African counterparts sent me a message: ‘Dear president, what is happening in your country?’,” Macron told regional newspaper La Provence during a visit to Marseille.<\/p>\n
Initially amused, the French president said he quickly realised the seriousness of the situation and instructed his team to report the video to Meta, Facebook\u2019s parent company.<\/p>\n
Macron slams Meta’s slow response<\/strong><\/p>\nThe French president stated that Meta initially refused to remove the video, arguing it did not violate the platform’s rules. “These people are mocking us,” Macron said. “They don\u2019t care about keeping public debates healthy; they mock the sovereignty of democracies and are putting us in danger”<\/p>\n
“I tend to think that I have more leverage than most [\u2026] Well, it doesn\u2019t work. As you can see, we\u2019re not well-enough equipped,” he added, his frustration appearing to be aimed at major US tech firms.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the rollback of many fact-checking measures on Facebook and Instagram, a decision critics warned would open the door to more viral falsehoods.<\/p>\n
Still online, barely flagged<\/strong><\/p>\nEven three days after Macron raised the issue, the video remained accessible online, carrying only a small disclaimer stating that it “may have been digitally created or altered to seem real.” It was eventually taken down.<\/p>\n
Not an isolated incident?<\/strong><\/p>\nThis was not the first time Macron or France has been targeted by AI-driven fake news.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, another fabricated coup video surfaced online, falsely attributed to France 24\u2019s sister outlet RFI. That clip drew more than three million views before disappearing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A dramatic “breaking news” video claiming that French President Emmanuel Macron had been overthrown spread rapidly online this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":639741,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[196972,196960,196965,196981,1500,196958,196961,196980,196976,82388,196974,34,196957,2000,299,196966,196962,196982,36,196978,54063,196970,196979,157892,8615,157894,1501,157891,196964,196959,196969,196968,196967,196973,12,157889,157890,196963,196975,196983,32032,196977,31208,196971,10236,157888,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-639740","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-ai-disinformation-campaign","9":"tag-ai-fake-news-france","10":"tag-ai-generated-reporter-video","11":"tag-ai-propaganda-video","12":"tag-breaking-news","13":"tag-coup-fake-video","14":"tag-deepfake-macron-video","15":"tag-deepfake-politics","16":"tag-democracy-under-threat-ai","17":"tag-digital-sovereignty-europe","18":"tag-eiffel-tower-fake-footage","19":"tag-emmanuel-macron","20":"tag-emmanuel-macron-coup","21":"tag-eu","22":"tag-europe","23":"tag-facebook-reel-misinformation","24":"tag-fake-breaking-news-facebook","25":"tag-fake-france-24-rfi-clip","26":"tag-france","27":"tag-france-media-hoax","28":"tag-france-news","29":"tag-french-president-misinformation","30":"tag-global-misinformation-crisis","31":"tag-important-update","32":"tag-international-news","33":"tag-latest-english-news-today","34":"tag-latest-news","35":"tag-latest-news-in-english","36":"tag-live-24-fake-channel","37":"tag-macron-overthrown-hoax","38":"tag-macron-slams-meta","39":"tag-mark-zuckerberg-fact-checking-rollback","40":"tag-meta-fake-news-controversy","41":"tag-military-coup-france-hoax","42":"tag-news","43":"tag-news-alert","44":"tag-news-stories","45":"tag-paris-coup-rumour","46":"tag-social-media-manipulation","47":"tag-social-media-news","48":"tag-tech-news","49":"tag-tech-platforms-accountability","50":"tag-trending-news","51":"tag-viral-fake-news-europe","52":"tag-viral-news","53":"tag-wion-news","54":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=639740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/639741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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