TRUE OR FALSE. Did Greta Thunberg recommend switching to biodegradable missiles and vegan grenades?

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On social networks, a video of climate activist Greta Thunberg makes her say, in the middle of the war between Israel and Hamas, that we must switch to “sustainable weapons”. But the video is fake.

This is a video that has been circulating on social networks for two weeks, in the midst of the war between Israel and Hamas. We see young climate activist Greta Thunberg responding to a television interview in English. She seems to say that “war is always bad, especially for the planet”that we “must move to durable tanks and weapons”use “biodegradable missiles” and “vegan pomegranates”. But Greta Thunberg never said that.

A deepfake of Greta Thunberg

This is a deepfake, a video modified using artificial intelligence. In the images we can see the BBC logo, and the name of the show she is a guest on appears in the background, “The One Show”. By searching for the name of this show and the name of Greta Thunberg on a search engine, it is possible to find the original video of the young Swede, an interview given in November 2022 to the BBC in which she tells how she got raised awareness about global warming and how she became an activist.

An Internet user therefore took the images of this interview, reproduced the voice of the activist to make her say other words and adapted the movements of her mouth to make them correspond to these words.

The author of the deepfake is the account Snicklinka German account that presents itself as a “conspiracy comedian”, followed by several dozen people on the social network X, formerly Twitter. He regularly twists videos and images in a humorous way. Each time, he writes at the bottom right that it is a “satire”, but many Internet users did not see this message and believed that Greta Thunberg had actually encouraged a switch to biodegradable missiles and vegan grenades for waging war. Other Internet users, not believing it, also circulated the video, deeming it well done, funny and credible, which contributed to its diffusion and to making other people fall for it.

The activist is often the target of mockery and false information

This is all the more credible as a lot of false information has been circulating about the climate activist since her speech at the UN in 2019 in which she deplored the climate inaction of world leaders. She was accused of not writing her own tweets, of being manipulated by her parents, or of having pretended to be arrested in Germany in January 2023.

But this satirical video also comes at a special time. It was published just hours after Greta Thunberg posted a message on which did not please many Internet users, particularly those who support Israel’s military operations in the Gaza Strip in reaction to the Hamas terrorist attack of October 7. She posted a photo of herself with a sign reading “Stand with Gaza,” a slogan used by those who support the people of Gaza living under Israeli bombardment.

The display of this position has revived those who like to make fun of her and distort her words. A fake Twitter account of the activist even has her saying that Israel is a terrorist state, which she has never said either.


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