Have you seen clips from the new documentary narrated by Tom Cruise, titled “Olympics Has Fallen,” as a play on the title of the 2013 film “Olympus Has Fallen”?
A new film claims to expose corruption at the upcoming Paris Olympics. However, that is false. Cruise's narrative was created using artificial intelligence, and the "documentary" is the work of disinformation agents associated with the Russian government, according to a new report by Microsoft researchers.
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The fake documentary is about two Russian influence groups, which Microsoft has dubbed Storm-1679 and Storm-1099. It’s easy to see how some people could be fooled. The film consists of four 9-minute episodes, each starting with the signature “ta-dum” sound effect and Netflix ’s red-N animation .
"In this series, you will uncover the inner workings of the global sports industry," says the fake Tom Cruise, with dramatic music playing in the background. "In particular, I will shine a light on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) executives who are slowly and painfully destroying the Olympic sports that have existed for thousands of years.".
However, there are enough clues to show that this movie is ridiculous to anyone who pays attention. For starters, Cruise’s voice is realistic, but at times his performance is a bit monotonous. The most powerful clue, however, may be the words used by the Russian campaign that Americans wouldn’t use. For example, in the first episode there’s a line in Cruise’s fake narration that talks about a “hockey match” instead of a hockey game. The word “match” is much more common in Russia for sports like soccer, while any real hockey fan in the US would call it a game, not a match.
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There are moments when Cruise's false narrative in the fake documentary sounds like he's reading strategy notes written by the people who invented this piece of disinformation. Much of the documentary is devoted to trying to deconstruct the organizers of the Olympic Games as hopelessly corrupt, with the AI- trying to connect it to one of the actor's most famous roles of the 1990s.
"In the movie Jerry Maguire, my character writes a 25-page mission statement, denouncing the dishonesty in the athlete management industry. Jerry seeks justice for athletes, which makes him extremely lovable," the narration states.
It is difficult to imagine such a narrative that would make it an authentic documentary.
The fake documentary also contains some editing errors that seem particularly odd, such as when AI Cruise inexplicably repeats a phrase or when the audio briefly cuts out for no apparent reason. The entire film is available on the messaging app Telegram, where Gizmodo also watched it. We’ve uploaded a minute of the film below to give you a sense of how realistic the AI-generated narrative sounds.
The fake documentary debuted in June 2023, according to Microsoft, and appears to be gaining traction as the Olympics approach. The games begin in Paris on July 26 and run through August 11.
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As Microsoft said in a report published Sunday, the Storm-1679 group is trying to spread fear among people about attending the 2024 Olympics in France. Fake videos, supposedly containing warnings from the CIA, claim that the games are at risk of a major terrorist attack. Other videos, made to appear to come from reputable news outlets like France24, have claimed that 24% of tickets for the games have been returned due to terrorism fears. This information is completely untrue.
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Recently, disinformation peddlers have attempted to create fear about the war in Gaza, claiming that there may be terrorist acts in France linked to the conflict.
“Storm-1679 also sought to exploit the Israel-Hamas to threaten the Games,” Microsoft said in its new report. “In November 2023, it published images showing graffiti in Paris threatening violence against Israeli citizens attending the Games. Microsoft believes that this graffiti was created digitally and is highly unlikely to exist in a physical location.”
However, some of the information in the pseudo-documentary is actually true. For example, the film tells the story of Wu Ching-kuo, the head of Aiba, the governing body of amateur boxing, who was suspended due to allegations of financial mismanagement. Other allegations about Olympic officials are also true, according to news sources available online. This, however, is to be expected. The most successful propaganda combines fact and fiction in such a way as to make people uncertain about what is true.
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All we know for sure is that Tom Cruise never narrated this movie. With some trying to exploit the credibility of a major movie star to spread their message, you should always be wary of what they say — especially since bots help spread this media widely across social media platforms.
Source: gizmodo
