US manipulates:- A video of a speech by Barack Obama has been shared in Chinese-language social media posts that claim it shows the former U.S. president revealing the U.S. was covertly influencing public opinion in other countries. 

But the claim is false. The video has been digitally edited to omit important context. A review of the original clip shows that Obama was in fact referring to how foreign governments influence public opinion in the United States.

The 25-second video showing Obama giving a public speech was shared on the Chinese social media platform Weibo on Sep. 14, 2024. 

“The U.S.’s smearing campaign against China …. you will know what I mean when you watch this video,” the post reads in part. 

The video features Chinese subtitles that read: “All you need to do is to stir up a country’s public opinion with spam, ask enough questions, spread enough rumors, and implant enough conspiracy theories so that the citizens of those countries don’t know what to believe. 

“As soon as people lose trust in their leaders, mainstream media and government agencies; as soon as they stop trusting each other and stop believing that there can be truth, we win.”

The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed an act authorizing the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development to spend US$1.6 billion over the next five years to counter Chinese and Russian misinformation. 

Some online users cited Obama’s speech “evidence” that the U.S. was spending a lot of money to discredit China.

But the video has been digitally edited to omit important context of Obama’s speech. 

Original clip

A keyword search on Google found the original clip of the former president’s clip published on Stanford University’s YouTube channel on April 22, 2022.

“President Barack Obama delivers the keynote speech about disinformation and challenges to democracy in the digital information realm at an event hosted by Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center and The Obama Foundation,” the caption of the video reads in part.  

A close review of the original video shows that the video shared on Weibo has been digitally edited to omit the important context of his speech.

The matching scene starts at the original video’s 30-minute and 56-second mark.

Below is what the former president said:

“People like Putin and Steve Bannon, for that matter, understand it’s not necessary for people to believe this information in order to weaken democratic institutions. You just have to flood a country’s public square with enough raw sewage. You just have to raise enough questions, spread enough dirt, plant enough conspiracy theorizing that citizens no longer know what to believe.

“Once they lose trust in their leaders, in mainstream media, in political institutions, in each other, in the possibility of truth, the game’s won. And as Putin discovered leading up to the 2016 election, our own social media platforms are well designed to support such a mission, such a project.”

The verbatim transcript of his speech can be found on the website of the Obama Foundation.

AFCL also found Chinese subtitles used for the video on Weibo contain an incorrect translation. 

For instance, Obama did not say “we won”, as translated in the Chinese subtitles. But he in fact said:  “the game’s won.” RFA/SP