A startling video of former President Obama calling President TrumpDonald John TrumpTrump asking Arab nations to replace USA military in Syria after defeat of ISIS: report Columbia presses on with scholarship program for displaced Syrians despite Trump travel ban Dershowitz confronts Hannity: "You should have disclosed your relationship with Cohen" MORE a "complete dipshit" is a coordinated stunt from filmmaker Jordan Peele as a public service announcement to warn about fake videos.
Peele's fake Obama says that "Ben Carson is in the sunken place", referring to his Oscar-winning movie Get Out. Or, how 'bout this: "simply, President Trump is a total and complete dipshit". That is until the screen is split to reveal actor and director Jordan Peele delivering his famous Obama impression.
The pair wanted to warn the public about the rapidly evolving threat posed by digital misinformation after discussions between them about new technologies and the erosion of a shared reality.
"This is a risky time".
The project came to life after a conversation between Peele and Buzzfeed founder and CEO Jonah Peretti, who also happens to be Peele's brother in law. He said that people have become more aware of fake news sites and fake written news in recent years, but not everyone realizes videos can be manipulated in the way the PSA shows.
That message ends with Obama/Peele saying, "Stay woke, bitches". Such tools could be used to create pornographic videos with celebrities' faces superimposed or have world leaders appear to make outrageous or potentially unsafe statements.
"We've covered counterfeit news websites that say the pope endorsed Trump that look kinda like real news, but because it's text people have started to become more wary", he said.
Don't believe everything you see and hear in an internet video. Sosa digitally pasted Peele's mouth onto Obama's, then replaced the former president's jawline with one that moved in conjunction with Peele's speech patterns. He then exported that footage to refine the synthetic jaw and then let Fakeapp run for another 48 hours to get a more accurate rendering of Obama's mouth.
But of course, its a clever lip sync trick with Obama's voice being provided by Peele, who famously played Obama in the "Anger Translator" series he did with Keegan Michael-Key on Comedy Central's "Key & Peele". Moving forward, we need to be more vigilant with what we trust from the internet...
17 April 2018
