#FactCheck: Viral Video Falsely Linked to September 4 Anak Krakatau Eruption Is AI-Generated
Executive Summary
A volcano erupted at Indonesia’s Anak Krakatau on the night of September 4, 2026. A video is being shared on social media in connection with the eruption. The video shows lava rising high into the air following a volcanic eruption, with people seen fleeing the area. Some social media users are sharing the video claiming that it shows the eruption of Indonesia’s Anak Krakatau volcano. Research by CyberPeace found that the viral video is AI-generated. The video was created with the help of AI tools. However, four volcanoes, including Anak Krakatau, have erupted in Indonesia.
Claim
An Instagram user shared the viral video with the caption: “Indonesia’s Anak Krakatau volcano erupted Friday night. According to MAGMA Indonesia, lava fountains were seen rising from the volcano’s crater, while ash plumes reached a height of up to 400 metres. The volcano remains at Level III, with authorities enforcing a 3-kilometre exclusion zone around the crater.”
https://www.instagram.com/reels/DdBfQprThPA/
Fact Check
To investigate the viral video, we examined it closely and noticed several inconsistencies. At the beginning of the video, people can be seen standing calmly as the volcanic eruption takes place. Shortly afterward, the vehicles parked there suddenly begin moving. In one of the cars, no driver is visible. Meanwhile, the legs of a person running on the road disappear, and the person appears to merge into the background. These visual inconsistencies raised suspicions that the viral video had been created using AI tools.
We checked the video using the AI detection tool Hive Moderation, which indicated that there was a more than 94 percent likelihood that the video was AI-generated.
We checked the keyframes of the video using the AI detection tool Was It AI, which identified the video as 97 percent likely to be AI-generated.
Conclusion
The Anak Krakatau volcano in Indonesia erupted on the night of September 4, 2026. However, our research found that the video being shared in connection with the eruption was created using AI tools. Visual inconsistencies in the footage, along with the results of AI detection tools, indicate that the video is AI-generated and does not show genuine footage of the Anak Krakatau eruption. Therefore, the claim that the viral video shows the September 4 eruption of Indonesia’s Anak Krakatau volcano is false.
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Executive Summary
A video is going viral on social media with the claim that ₹500 Indian currency notes were found inside a bag during the floods in Nepal. A research by CyberPeace’s research wing found that the video is not from the recent floods in Nepal, but from Vrindavan in Uttar Pradesh. The video was uploaded on July 14 by an Instagram creator on their account. The 30-second video shows people travelling in a boat finding a bag floating in the water, from which several ₹500 currency notes are pulled out.
Claim:
The video has been shared on X with a caption claiming that Nepal is witnessing widespread destruction following severe floods, with people seen wading through muddy, debris-filled water to search for and recover their belongings. The caption further claims that people found a bag containing ₹500 Indian currency notes and were seen rejoicing over the discovery. It also cautions that entering fast-flowing, debris-filled floodwater is extremely dangerous.
https://x.com/SanjuKu79832010/status/2093238274206887946
Fact Check:
To verify the viral video claiming that a bag containing ₹500 Indian currency notes was found during the floods in Nepal, we conducted a reverse image search using keyframes from the footage. The search led us to a video uploaded on the Instagram account ‘parshuram_676’ on July 14, 2024.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Daw7aYJAjoc/
Additionally, we found the same boat seen in the viral video in several other videos uploaded on the same Instagram account.
Not only that, we also found several videos with visuals similar to those in the viral video uploaded on the same video creator’s Facebook account. The information provided on the Facebook account also lists Vrindavan, Uttar Pradesh, as the location.
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61567184794045
Conclusion:
The evidence gathered during our research clearly establishes that the video being circulated with the claim that ₹500 Indian currency notes were found inside a bag during the floods in Nepal was actually filmed by a video creator in Vrindavan, Uttar Pradesh.
Executive Summary
A video is being shared on social media with the claim that actor Shah Rukh Khan reprimanded Saudi Arabia over the death sentence awarded to Baljinder Singh.In the viral video, Shah Rukh Khan is purportedly heard saying, “Our simple and innocent brother Baljinder Singh, a resident of Sujanpur in Punjab’s Pathankot district, has been sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia after being falsely implicated in a drug case as part of a deep conspiracy. But stay strong, my brother.
Nothing will happen to you. I will definitely save you. Your brother is alive, and I swear that I will not let you die alone on that dreaded noose. Instead, I will put all my strength on the line and risk my life to pull you out of that hellish prison and bring you safely back to the soil of Punjab and the land of India.”
CyberPeace Research Wing’s research found the claim to be false. Our research found that the audio used in the viral video is AI-generated.
Claim:
A video is being shared on social media with the claim that actor Shah Rukh Khan reprimanded Saudi Arabia over the death sentence awarded to Baljinder Singh.
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1491107586179716
Fact Check
To verify the claim that Shah Rukh Khan reprimanded Saudi Arabia over the death sentence awarded to Baljinder Singh, we first conducted a Google search using relevant keywords. During the search, we did not find any information related to the viral claim in any credible media report.A reverse image search of the keyframes from the video led us to a video uploaded on The University of Edinburgh’s YouTube account on October 16, 2015, which contains the same segment seen in the viral clip. Notably, the background in the original video is identical to that seen in the viral clip.
In the original video, Shah Rukh Khan can be seen speaking about “life lessons”. During the event, he was conferred an honorary doctorate by the University of Edinburgh. In his address, he shared several unique lessons about life through some of his popular film characters. Shah Rukh Khan spoke about the importance of embracing one’s individuality, while combining humour with self-reflection. He also spoke about facing one’s fears and maintaining self-confidence amid challenges. Sharing anecdotes from his journey in films, Shah Rukh Khan explained how different characters had taught him to look at life from new perspectives.However, he makes no mention of Baljinder Singh anywhere in the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnnXAiTOLbo
We then checked the viral video using Hive Detect, an AI detection tool. The tool’s analysis indicated that the voice of Shah Rukh Khan in the video was AI-generated, with a 97.2 per cent probability.
Additionally, six detectors on another AI detection tool, Deepfake-O-Meter, identified Shah Rukh Khan’s voice in the video as highly likely to be AI-generated.
Conclusion
The evidence gathered during our research makes it clear that the claim that Shah Rukh Khan reprimanded Saudi Arabia over the death sentence awarded to Baljinder Singh is false. The audio of Shah Rukh Khan in the viral video is AI-generated.
The recent Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025, that came into force in August, has been one of the most widely anticipated regulations in the digital entertainment industry. Among provisions such as promoting esports and licensing of online gaming, the legislation notably introduces a blanket ban on real-money gaming (RMG). The rationale behind this was to reduce its addictive effects, protect minors, and limit the circulation of black-money. However, in reality, the Act has spawned apprehension about the legislative process, regulatory redundancy, and unintended consequences that can shift users and revenue to offshore operators.
From Debate to Prohibition: How the Act was Passed
The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act was passed as a central law, providing the earlier fragmented state laws on online betting and gambling with an overarching framework. Proponents argue that, among other provisions, some kind of unified national framework was needed to deal with the scale of online betting due to its detrimental impact on young users. The current Act is a direct transition to criminalisation rather than the swings of self-regulation and partial restrictions used during the previous decade of incremental experiments in regulation. Stakeholders in the industry believe that this type of sudden, blanket action creates uncertainty and erodes confidence in the system in the long run. Further, critics have pointed out that the Bill was passed without adequate Parliamentary deliberation. A question has been raised about whether procedural safeguards were upheld.
Prohibition of Online RMG
Within the Indian context, a distinction has long been drawn between games of skill and games of chance, with the latter, like a lottery or a casino, being severely prohibited under state laws, whereas the former, like rummy or fantasy sports, have generally been allowed after being recognized as skill-based by court authorities. The Online Gaming Act of 2025 abolishes this distinction on the internet, thus banning all RMG actions that include cash transactions, regardless of skill or chance. The act also criminalises the advertising, facilitation, and hosting of such sites, thereby penalizing offshore operators with an Indian customer focus, and subjecting their payment gateways, app stores, and advertisers under its jurisdiction to penalties.
The Problem of Overlap
One potential issue that the Act presents is its overlap with the existing laws. The IT Rules 2023 mandate intermediaries in the gaming sector to appoint compliance officers, submit monthly reports, and undergo due diligence. The new Act introduces a three-level classification of games, whereas the advisories of the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) under the Consumer Protection Act treat online betting as an unfair trade practice.
This multiplicity of regulations builds a maze where different Ministries and state governments have overlapping jurisdiction. Policy experts caution that such an overlap can create enforcement challenges, punish players who act within the law, and leave offshore malefactors undetected.
Unintended Consequences: Driving Users Offshore
Outright prohibition will hardly ever remove demand; it will only push it out. Offshore sites have taken advantage of the situation as Indian operators like Dream11 shut down their money games after the ban. It has already been reported that there is aggressive advertising by foreign betting companies that are not registered in India, most of which have backend infrastructure that cannot be regulated by the Act (Storyboard18).
This diversion of users to unregulated markets has two main risks. First, Indian players are deprived of the consumer protection offered to them in local regulation, and their data can be sent to suspicious foreign organizations. Second, the government loses control over the money flow that can be transferred via informal channels or cryptocurrencies or other obscure systems. Industry analysts are alerting that such developments may only worsen the issue of black-money instead of solving it (IGamingBusiness).
Advertising, Age Gating, and Digital Rights
The Act has also strengthened advertisement regulations, aligning with advisories issued by the Advertising Standards Council of India, which prohibits the targeting of minors. However, critics believe that the application remains inadequately enforced, and children can with comparative ease access unregulated overseas applications. In the absence of complementary digital literacy programs and strong parental controls, these limitations can be effectively superficial instead of real.
Privacy advocates also warn that frequent prompts, vague messages, or invasive surveillance can weaken the digital rights of users instead of strengthening them. Overregulation has also been found to create banner blindness in global contexts where users ignore warnings without first clearly understanding them.
Enforcement Challenges
The Act puts a lot of responsibilities on many stakeholders, including the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Platforms like Google Play and Apple App Store are expected to verify government-approved lists of compliant gaming apps and remove non-compliant or banned ones, as directed by the MIB and the RBI. Although this pressure may motivate intermediaries to collaborate, it may also have a risk of overreach when it is applied unequally or in a political way.
According to the experts, the solution should be underpinned by technology itself. Artificial intelligence can be used to identify illegal advertisements, track illegal gaming in children, and trace payment streams. At the same time, the regulators should be able to issue final lists of either compliant or non-compliant applications to advise the consumers and intermediaries alike. Without such practical provisions, enforcement risks remaining patchy.
Online Gaming Rules
On 1 October 2025, the government issued a draft of the Online Gaming Rules in accordance with the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act. The regulations focus on the creation of the compliance frameworks, define the classification of the allowed gaming activities, and prescribe grievance-redressal mechanisms aiming to promote the protection of the players and procedural transparency. However, the draft does not revisit or soften the existing blanket prohibition on real-money gaming (RMG) and, hence, the questions about the effectiveness of enforcement and regulatory clarity remain open (Times of India, 2025).
Protecting Consumers Without Stifling Innovation
The ban highlights a larger conflict, i.e., the protection of the vulnerable users without stifling an industry that has traditionally contributed to innovation, jobs, and the collection of tax revenue. Online gaming has significantly added to the GST collections, and the sudden shakeup brings fiscal concerns (Reuters).
Several legal objections to the Act have already been brought, asking whether the Act is constitutional, especially as to whether the restrictions are proportional to the right to trade. The outcome of such cases will define the future trajectory of the digital economy of India (Reuters).
Way Forward
Instead of outright prohibition, a more balanced approach that incorporates regulation and consumer protection is suggested by the experts. Key measures could include:
- A definite difference between games of skill and games of chance, with proportionate regulation.
- Age confirmation and campaign against online illiteracy to protect the underage population.
- Enhanced advertising and payments compliance requirements and enforceable non-compliance penalty.
- Coordinated oversight among different ministries to prevent duplication and regulatory struggle.
- Leveraging AI and fintech to track illegal financial activities (black money flows) and developing innovation.
Conclusion
The Online Gaming Act 2025 addresses social issues, such as addiction, monetary risk, and child safety, that require governance interventions. However, the path it follows to this end, that of total prohibition, is more likely to spawn a new set of issues instead of providing solutions because it will send consumers to offshore sites, undermine consumer rights, and slow innovation.
For India, the real challenge is not whether to prohibit online money gaming but how to create a balanced, transparent, and enforceable framework that protects users while fostering a responsible gaming ecosystem. India can reduce the adverse consequences of online betting without keeping the industry in the shadows with better coordination, reasonable use of technology, and balanced protection.
References:
- India's Dream11, top gaming apps halt money-based games after ban
- India online gambling ban could drive punters to black market
- Offshore betting firms with backend ops in India not covered by online gaming law
- The Great Gamble: India’s Online Gaming Ban, The GST Battle, And What Lies Ahead.
- Game Over for Online Money Games? An Analysis of the Online Gaming Act 2025
- Government gambles heavily on prohibiting online money gaming
- Online gaming regulation: New rules to take effect from October 1; government stresses consultative approach with industry
