Dark truth behind viral TikTok of Eiffel Tower ‘on fire’

All is not as it seems

With the development of artificial intelligence (AI), it's easier than ever to create images and videos of pretty much anything you can think of. From imagining what the most attractive man from every country looks like, to editing a selfie into a pretty professional looking headshot, if you know you're way round AI you could create pretty much anything.

Gen Z, a.k.a. people born in the late 1990s, would fancy themselves as the most tech-savvy generation of them all, and are almost certainly more adept at working out what to believe online than their parents and grandparents are.

But it doesn't take much to dupe them either, even on the home of Gen Z - TikTok.

Clips claiming to show the Eiffel Tower on fire, have been racking up millions of views, likes and comments from people stunned at one of the world's most recognisable landmarks being ablaze.

One TikTok showing three different pictures of the steel structure 'on fire' has more than 10 million likes and has been viewed some 145 million times.

Another shows flames emerging from the middle floor of the tower, and has racked up 152,000 likes.

A quick search in the comments on these videos shows hundreds of people asking whether the footage is real or not, seemingly ignoring the fact that if the symbol of France was up in flames, it would probably be getting wall to wall news coverage, just like the Notre Dame fire did.

Of course, the clips aren't real, and are instead the result of some incredibly realistic CGI and editing, as plenty have been pointing out.

Whilst footage imagining the Eiffel Tower in flames isn't particularly dangerous to anyone, it is a good example of how absolutely everyone is at risk of being conned by technology.

There's a more sinister significance to this as well. In a year that will see huge elections both here in the UK and across the Atlantic in the US, there's only likely to be an increase in fake news and digitally-altered clips claiming to show people saying things they're not.

So, just bear in mind to double-check anything that feels questionable, and fact-check everything you have doubts over.

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