The head of an American university was the victim of a racist deepfake, Vice explains on Wednesday. Three high school students from Carmel High School in upstate New York had fun posting videos on TikTok in which the principal of neighboring George Fischer College, John Piscitella, appears to be making racist remarks.
In particular, we see the principal calling the black students “monkeys” and saying that they would be sent back to Africa. “I hope these niggas get shot ’cause they just ain’t learning,” the principal seems to state in the video, before threatening to “come to school with [sa] Machine gun”.
It was actually a deepfake. This technology, based on artificial intelligence, allows one face to be replaced by that of another in a video or to distort the words of a person with disconcerting realism. The videos were eventually removed and school authorities condemned the “blatant racism”.
Parents denounce the inaction of the school
But the story does not end there. The parents of the students, who had not seen these videos circulate and were unaware of the threats against black students, denounced the inaction of the school authorities. They see the images as part of a larger problem of racist behavior in the district’s schools.
The videos were first reported to school authorities on February 12. On February 15, the Carmel Central District, which oversees both the middle school and high school, said in a statement “inappropriate videos created with artificial intelligence and posing as members of ‘district administration.’
The statement also said that the students who posted the videos would be “treated in accordance with the district’s code of conduct,” without elaborating.
Despite this, the parents accuse them of having underestimated the threat and of having left the school open after this incident, without security measures. Some would even consider filing a complaint against school authorities. The lawyer representing the parents goes so far as to speak of a “terrorist threat to the school.”
Source: BFM TV
