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TikTok account ‘Robert Pattinson’ is the latest account unlikely to appear on celebrity profiles to raise questions

When former actor Robert Pattinson popped up on TikTok about a month ago, fans couldn’t believe it.

“I’m crawling out of my skin, extremely uncomfortable,” said Sarah, a Pattinson expert who is known for TikToks of the “Twilight” series. “Because whoever does that is obviously using their face in some way, but I don’t really understand it.”

Other TikTok users were more convinced by this account. “That’s him,” one person commented on a recent video. “The whole thing about R-Pats is that no one else looks from afar like him.”

The account is the latest celebrity profile to not appear on the app and cause mass confusion, and experts say it’s most likely something known as a deepfake.

A deepfake is composite digital content that uses artificial intelligence and visual effects to manipulate visuals or audio and video. From crude face swap videos made using mobile application arrive complex software that can make it seem like a person will do or say something they have never done, deepfake videos are increasingly popular online.

Since the account “Robert Pattinson” (@iam_pattinson) posted on TikTok last month, it has amassed 87.6 million views and nearly 600,000 followers. The person featured in this account’s video bears an uncanny resemblance to the “Twilight” and “Batman” stars, confusing TikTok viewers with other mundane videos.

The account’s first video has more than 20 million views and shows the actor shyly waving at the camera with the tag #robertpattinsonedit.

In one video, who looks like Pattinson modeled a fake Batman costume acquired on eBay. In againhe lip-synced the opening verse of J. Cole’s “Work Out” and posed in front of the ring lights.

Sarah notes, “The shy, weird body language in the first video,” isn’t anything that he’s going to do. ”

Some viewers have started calling the person in the video “Bob Pattinson”.

NBC News was unable to reach the account owner for comment.

Representatives for Pattinson did not immediately respond to requests to confirm or deny that the account actually belonged to him. Pattinson doesn’t have any public social media accounts – for a while 2017 Reddit AMAhe said he considers social networking “only in dark moments” and for a Interview in 2019 joked that he was “too old and boring” for Instagram. He admit use a secret Twitter account in 2020, but don’t use it to post publicly.

“There’s no place he can go and say, ‘That’s not me, guys,'” said Sarah, who asked to be identified only by name for privacy reasons. “I think he makes a good potential deepfake.”

Sarah theorized that someone could be impersonating Pattinson because of the moment the actor is facing in popular culture right now.

“With ‘Batman’, he wasn’t just great with women, but suddenly, men started asserting him in a way they never were,” Sarah said.

Even forensic experts unfamiliar with Pattinson’s manners cast doubt on this account.

“The high level of realism those videos have is quite surprising, but I’m not surprised.”

buffalo university professor siwei lyu

According to Siwei Lyu, a professor at the University of Buffalo who studies digital forgery and machine learning, the account has some red flags. Lyu believes that this account is impersonating Pattinson with high-quality deepfake technology.

“The high level of realism of those videos is quite surprising, but I’m not surprised,” Lyu said. He added that deepfake videos tend to be “low quality to hide specific artifacts” or features that show warped faces.

Lyu and his students are working on programs to detect digitally manipulated content, like an algorithm that can pick up features that humans might not be able to capture.

But with the naked eye, Lyu says certain details in @iam_pattinson’s video aren’t quite the same.

Lyu pointed out the difference between @iam_pattinson’s upper ear and Pattinson’s real earwhile Pattinson’s ear is more pointed at the tip, @iam_pattinson’s upper ear is round. Based on search of the University of California, Berkeley professor Hany Farid and postdoctoral researcher Shruti Agarwal, each human ear structure is unique and “provides a rich source of forensic information.”

Lyu suggests that like many other deepfake videos, @iam_pattinson’s video can be created by grafting Pattinson’s face onto the face of someone with a similar physique and hair color.

“The face may look like the person, the subject, but the other part of the face can be a telltale sign,” he said.

Human “ear imprinting” is complex, and certain facial expressions and manner of speaking can subtly influence ear movements. Facial features can be changed, but “the shape of the ear, that’s something that’s very difficult to change,” he says.

Agarawal agrees that the videos are “pretty well done,” but the person in them “isn’t Robert Pattinson.” She explains that most deepfake technology only replaces features in certain facial parameters, like cheeks and chin. Face modeling software usually doesn’t include ears.

Aside from her ears, Agarwal says that the mouth movement in @iam_pattinson’s lip-syncing video stands out to her. Some sounds like “B,” “P” and “M” require the lips to be completely closed to produce that sound. Agarwal pointed out the “mismatch” in the movements in the video.

“It’s the physiology of our face, everything on our face is interconnected. And if we just replace one part of the face and make it move in a certain way, determined, it won’t repair other parts,” she continued. “It would disrupt natural movement.”

“Humans are very good at analyzing human faces because that’s what we’ve been doing all our lives.”

Postdoctoral researcher Shruti agarwal of the University of California, Berkeley

Some viewers may be fooled by the videos, but others find them extremely unsettling. The phenomenon of “strange valleys” is when viewers get annoyed when a human clone falls down to a convincing fake. Higher-quality depth shots can be scarier than low-quality ones, Agarwal added, because these visual details are clearer.

There’s no way to quantify “the cues that humans are catching up on,” Agarwal says, but she hypothesizes that facial cues can trigger warnings in our brains. For example, @iam_pattinson’s eye movement in the video doesn’t quite match the head movement, warning viewers that “something is missing”.

“Humans are very good at analyzing human faces because that’s what we’ve been doing all our lives,” Agarwal said. “So I think any disruption in those natural movements is caught pretty quickly by the human eye.”

Some people may feel shivers when viewing the depth image, but composite videos continue to fool social media users. Chris Ume, a Belgian visual effects artist, has gained millions of views on TikTok with series of videos depicts actor Tom Cruise performing a magic trick, playing golf, and falling.

In an interview, Ume said that he “didn’t want to fool people all the time.”

“If I can help create awareness, or even work on discovery in the future, I’d love to,” he continued.

To tell what’s real and what’s fake, Agarwal recommends looking for “flashes” around the edges of a face for a number, which suggests the face may have been digitally manipulated. “Sophisticated clues” like mismatched ears or strange mouth movements may be harder to spot on lower-quality video, but “the most obvious story is flickering in faces.”

Lyu says videos impersonating Pattinson are relatively harmless, but he urges viewers to approach similar content with a critical eye.

“[Someone] Lyu said, “It’s important to let the public know that videos can be synthesized and manipulated, so they need to be careful.”

Sarah, the “Twilight” expert, still wonders about how many TikTok users have been scammed by the account.

Sarah said: “It’s terrifying that someone can take something this far, this person has posted six or seven videos that people still don’t know about.

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