Vatican City: In a swift move to combat misinformation, YouTube has permanently removed a channel accused of spreading artificial intelligence-generated videos falsely attributed to the newly elected Pope Leo XIV. The videos, many of which portrayed fabricated statements and speculative content, falsely depicted the pontiff delivering messages he never made.
The channel, titled “Pope Leo XIV’s Sermons”, was reportedly gaining viral traction, racking up close to one million views before YouTube intervened. Despite Pope Leo XIV having taken office only two weeks ago, AI-generated forgeries in his name have been surfacing at an alarming rate.
“YouTube has strict guidelines against content that misleads viewers or mimics authoritative figures deceptively,” said YouTube spokesperson Jack Malone to Catholic news outlet Aleteia. He confirmed that the channel was removed for violating the platform’s policies on spam and deceptive content. All the videos from the channel were AI-manipulated and lacked any authenticity.
In a separate incident, the Vatican condemned a widely shared 36-minute video that appeared to show Pope Leo XIV addressing the president of Burkina Faso. The footage was exposed as fake, having been generated by morphing real video from a May 12 press meeting the Pope held with journalists. The video was released by the account Pan African Dreams and was crafted using advanced AI tools.
Reacting to the rise of such manipulated content, Vatican Media issued a strong advisory urging the public to rely solely on official sources, such as the Vatican’s website (vatican.va) and its multilingual media platforms, for accurate communications from Pope Leo XIV. They emphasized the risk of half-truths, doctored visuals, and artificial audio clips undermining trust in religious and global institutions.
As artificial intelligence grows more sophisticated, global platforms like YouTube and religious institutions alike are grappling with the challenge of preventing misinformation while preserving the integrity of public discourse.