#FactCheck - Misleading Viral Video Targets Rubika Liyaquat, Original Footage Tells Different Story
Executive Summary
A video circulating on social media claims that a Pakistani man misbehaved with TV anchor Rubika Liyaquat during a live television debate. Users sharing the clip alleged that the Pakistani participant silenced the anchor on live TV.
However, research by CyberPeace found the viral claim to be false and revealed that the video being shared on social media is edited. In the original video, published on YouTube on November 26, 2025, the alleged Pakistani man was not present in the TV debate.
Claim
On February 13, 2026, a user shared the viral clip on X (formerly Twitter), claiming that the anchor was insulted during the debate and was left speechless. Another user on February 11, 2026, asked News18 India to verify the video and questioned who allowed such behaviour towards the journalist on air.
Fact Check:
To verify the claim, we extracted key frames from the viral video and conducted a reverse image search using Google Lens. During the research, we found the full version of the debate uploaded on the official YouTube channel of News18 India on November 26, 2025. The nearly 40-minute original broadcast featured anchor Rubika Liyaquat along with panelists Zafar Islam, Varun Purohit, Prateek Kumar, Arvind Kumar Vajpayee, Tausif Ahmed Khan, and Aziz Khan. However, the person seen misbehaving with the anchor in the viral clip was not present in the original video.
Upon carefully reviewing the footage, we located the actual segment around the 25-minute 40-second mark. In this portion, the anchor can be heard asking panelist Tausif Ahmed Khan to leave the show, using the same words heard in the viral clip. However, the original broadcast does not feature any Pakistani participant or any individual named “Nadeem Shahzad.”
Conclusion
Our research found that the viral claim is false. The circulating video has been edited, and the alleged Pakistani participant does not appear in the original debate uploaded on November 26, 2025.
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Introduction
In January 2026, the Basic Act on the Development of Artificial Intelligence and the Establishment of a Foundation for Trustworthiness came into effect in South Korea, establishing one of the first national AI laws in the world. The bill, enacted by the National Assembly of Korea in December 2024 and implemented from January 22, 2026, aims to strike a balance between the rapid advancement of technology and clear safeguards against risks, as well as transparency, accountability, and responsible AI use. It puts Seoul and the European Union on the frontline of developing legal systems for artificial intelligence and indicates a long-term goal of becoming an AI power on the global stage.
What the AI Basic Act Covers
The AI Basic Act consists of 19 separate AI bills that are merged into a single piece of legislation that covers the lifecycle of AI, including research and development, deployment, and utilisation. It is very wide in its coverage: it refers to any AI system that influences the Korean market or users inside the country, irrespective of the country in which it is created. The law does not apply to national defence and security applications.
The law defines key concepts like artificial intelligence, generative AI, and high-impact AI and establishes the principles of ethical AI, safety, user rights, industry support, and national policy coordination. It also offers a legal foundation for the activities of the government to promote AI innovation without jeopardising the common good.
Fundamentally, the AI Basic Act is designed to establish a culture of trust between businesses and the government/citizens. It does not prohibit AI technologies and does not excessively limit innovation. Instead, it creates the framework of responsible development and economic growth.
Guardrails for Safety and Accountability
One of the defining features of the AI Basic Act is its risk-based approach. Rather than considering all AI systems as similar, it makes a distinction between ordinary and high-impact AI systems, the ones applied in sectors where the wrong or unsafe decision can have a major impact on the safety, rights, or critical infrastructure of the population. Some of them can be seen in healthcare, transportation, financial services, education, and public services.
The high-impact AI operators must integrate risk management plans, human controls, and surveillance systems. In critical decision-making situations, human control should be available at all times; that is, machines can help but not override human control where human safety or other human rights are involved.
The law enables the regulators to perform on-site checks, demand documentation, and conduct compliance investigations. Fines for breaches may go up to 30 million Korean won (approximately 21,000 US dollars). It has a one-year period of transition that is based on guidance but not enforcement, thus allowing companies time to implement compliance measures before imposing fines.
These requirements contribute to enhancing accountability by defining who is accountable for the safety outcomes. The law in South Korea is placed in the ecosystem, as opposed to the methods in which industry self-governance alone is utilised.
Transparency and Labelling Requirements
The AI Basic Act is based on transparency. The legislation ensures that users are notified before an AI system is operating, particularly with the generation of AI outputs that could be confused with human-created material. As an example, AI-generated text, images, video, or audio that may be difficult to distinguish between reality and fake must have obvious labels or watermarks to allow users to understand the source of the content.
The necessity to label is meant to fight misinformation, misleading activities, and unintended influence on the perception of the people. It is based on international anxiety regarding AI-generated content, such as deepfakes, manipulated media, and misleading online advertisements that have already been addressed separately in policy by South Korea, as well as discussions of data governance.
The transparency is also applied to the process of decision-making in AI systems. Developers and operators should be able to give explicit information about the way in which high-impact systems make their conclusions so that those who are victims of automated decisions can seek meaningful explanations. Although specific explainability criteria are in the process of being developed, the law grounds the principle that AI cannot act behind the scenes in situations where crucial decisions are being made.
Data Privacy and User Protection
The AI governance practice in South Korea is complementary to its current data protection laws, the Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA), which is broadly regarded as equivalent to major international data protection regulations like the GDPR in regard to personal data laws. The AI Basic Act provides an explanation as to how the data can be gathered, processed, and utilised within AI systems with regard to privacy rights, particularly in areas of high impact.
The law does not supersede the personal data protection policies, but it sets certain conditions on how AI developers must address the data to be utilised in training, testing, and running AIs. Operators will be required to document their data workflows and demonstrate how they guard the privacy of their users, including by transparency and consent mechanisms where necessary. This can assist in ensuring that the information that is utilised in AI functions is regulated by definite norms, and it is more difficult to avoid privacy requirements in the name of innovation.
Accountability and Governance Infrastructure
The AI Basic Act establishes a national policy framework of AI governance. The National Artificial Intelligence Strategy Committee, chaired by the President, is at the top and proposes the overall AI policy and aligns it with national objectives. The organisations that would support this are the specialised organisations that deal with safety, risk assessment, and research and the policy centre that would analyse the effects of AI on society and assist in its adoption by the industry.
This institutional structure facilitates strategic guidance as well as operational control. It is through incorporating AI governance in the administration of the people, but not into the market forces, that South Korea wishes to have the ethical and societal concerns become part of the sectors and agencies.
Promoting Innovation and Industrial Support
Although the AI Basic Act does not disregard regulation, it is not a law of restrictions. It also offers legal justification for research and development, human capital, and the growth of the AI industry, with special consideration for startups and small and medium-sized businesses. The legislation promotes AI clusters, long-term funding programmes, and policies to bring foreign talent to the Korean AI ecosystem.
This bidimensional approach of compliance and support is indicative of the broader desire of Korea to become one of the leading AI powers in the world, along with the US and China. The government has pointed out that it will encourage trust by having clear and predictable rules that will attract investment and maintain innovation and not stifle it.
What This Means Globally
The AI Basic Act of South Korea is not only interesting in its contents but also in its timing. It is also among the first thorough AI legislations to come into force in the world, and it beats the gradual regulatory implementations in other parts of the globe, like the European Union. Its system incorporates a principle-based framework, transparency requirements, accountability regulations, and industrial support, which reflects a contrasting model to either pure prescriptive risk regulation or lax self-regulation models elsewhere.
Other critics, such as industry groups and civil society organisations, have suggested that some of the protections may be more explicit, in particular to those who are harmed by AI systems, or to establish high-impact categories. Nonetheless, the framework sets a benchmark upon which most nations will pay close attention when they establish their own AI regimes.
Conclusion
The AI Basic Act puts South Korea at the forefront of national AI regulation, including very well-developed guardrails that enforce transparency, ethical control, accountability, and data protection in addition to fostering innovation. It recognises that AI could lead to economic and social advantages, yet also actual risks, particularly when systems are opaque, autonomous, or widely implemented. South Korea has gone holistically in responsible AI governance by integrating human oversight, labelling requirements, risk management planning, and governance infrastructure into law to be emulated by other countries in the years to come.
Sources
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/29/south-korea-world-first-ai-regulation-laws
- https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2025/10/artificial-intelligence-and-the-labour-market-in-korea_af668423/68ab1a5a-en.pdf
- https://asianintelligence.ai/south-korea
- https://aibasicact.kr/
- https://aibusinessweekly.net/p/south-korea-ai-basic-act-takes-effect-jan22-2026
- https://asiadaily.org/news/12112/
Executive Summary
A video featuring Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is being widely shared on social media. In the video, Adityanath can be heard saying, “Let me become the Prime Minister, and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir will also become a part of India.” The video also carries an on-screen text that reads “Next PM 2029.” By sharing this clip, social media users are claiming that Yogi Adityanath is set to become India’s Prime Minister in 2029.
However, CyberPeace research found the viral claim to be misleading. Our research revealed that the video circulating online has been edited and is being shared out of context. The original video dates back to May 2024. In the original footage, Yogi Adityanath is not speaking about himself. Instead, he is referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
In the original statement, Adityanath says:
“Let Modi ji become Prime Minister for the third time, and within the next six months, Pakistan-occupied Kashmir will also become a part of India.”
It is evident that the video has been trimmed and misleading text has been added to falsely portray the statement as a declaration about Yogi Adityanath becoming Prime Minister in 2029.
Claim
A YouTube user shared the viral video on January 29, 2026, claiming that Yogi Adityanath said, “Let me become Prime Minister, and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir will be part of India.” The video carries the caption “Next PM 2029,” suggesting that Adityanath is set to become the Prime Minister in 2029.
Link to the post n archive
Fact Check:
To verify the viral claim, we first conducted a keyword search on Google. During this process, we found a report published by Aaj Tak on May 18, 2024. According to the report, Yogi Adityanath stated that if Narendra Modi becomes Prime Minister for the third time, Pakistan-occupied Kashmir would become part of India within six months.
Report link:
Next, we extracted keyframes from the viral video and ran them through Google Lens. This led us to the official YouTube channel of Yogi Adityanath, where the same video was uploaded on May 18, 2024.
Original video link:
In the original video, Yogi Adityanath clearly makes the statement in reference to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, not himself.Finally, we compared the viral clip with the original footage. The visuals in both videos are identical; however, the viral version has been edited and overlaid with misleading text to change the meaning of the statement.
Conclusion
Our research confirms that the viral video is edited and misleading. The original video is from May 2024, in which Yogi Adityanath was speaking about Prime Minister Narendra Modi, not about himself becoming Prime Minister in 2029. The video has been falsely altered and shared with a deceptive claim on social media.
Executive Summary:
A viral video showing flames and thick smoke from large fuel tanks has been shared widely on social media. Many claimed it showed a recent Russian missile attack on a fuel depot in Ukraine. However, our research found that the video is not related to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. It actually shows a fire that happened at Al Hamriyah Port in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, on May 31, 2025. The confusion was likely caused by a lack of context and misleading captions.
Claim:
The circulating claim suggests that Russia deliberately bombed Ukraine's fuel reserves and the viral video shows evidence of the bombing. The posts claim the fuel depot was destroyed purposefully during military operations, implying an increase in violence. This narrative is intended to generate feelings and reinforce fears related to war.
Fact Check:
After doing a reverse image search of the key frames of the viral video, we found that the video is actually from Al Hamriyah Port, UAE, not from the Russia-Ukraine conflict. During further research we found the same visuals were also published by regional news outlets in the UAE, including Gulf News and Khaleej Times, which reported on a massive fire at Al Hamriyah Port on 31 May 2025.
As per the news report, a fire broke out at a fuel storage facility in Al Hamriyah Port, UAE. Fortunately, no casualties were reported. Fire Management Services responded promptly and successfully brought the situation under control.
Conclusion:
The belief that the viral video is evidence of a Russian strike in Ukraine is misleading and incorrect. The video is actually of a fire at a commercial port in the UAE. When you share misleading footage like that, you distort reality and incite fear based on lies. It is simply a reminder that not all viral media is what it appears to be, and every viewer should take the time to check and verify the content source and context before accepting or reposting. In this instance, the original claim is untrue and misleading.
- Claim: Fresh attack in Ukraine! Russian military strikes again!
- Claimed On: Social Media
- Fact Check: False and Misleading
