In the lead up to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, there were warnings that Russia might try to employ so-called deep fakes, high-tech manipulated videos, as an information warfare strategy. Sure enough, earlier this month, a deepfake appeared. Mr. Thankrani's shanof-do, be president,

it was not so

just it's lehko.

The video shows Ukrainian President

Vladimir Zelensky

speaking into a camera,

telling Ukrainian soldiers

to lay down their arms

and surrender to the Russians.

Which never actually happened.

This was a phony clip, meant to fool people into thinking Zelensky had given up the fight.

But the funny thing is it was pretty impotent.

It didn't work.

It didn't trick anyone.

It was detected very quickly and debunk very quickly.

Noah John Syracusa is a professor of math and data science at Bentley University, and the author of a book about how algorithms can both create and prevent misinformation like deepfakes.

He thinks this particular deepfake effort was a little silly, because it was easily refuted.

Even to the naked eye, it wasn't all that convincing.

And right after the video appeared, the real Zelensky

made a statement assuring Ukrainians his resolve was strong. And so, in this case, the deepfake was

immediately thwarted. For some, the fact that this video was so simple to dismiss suggests that

deepfakes aren't yet something we should be worrying much about. For others, this Zelensky video was troubling.

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