Facebook posts from a supposed online financial trading outfit claim New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is endorsing the organisation as “the best online trading platform”.
This is false. An account claiming to be a “forex, stocks, commodities and cryptocurrencies” platform has repeatedly misused pictures and video from events involving Mr Luxon to dishonestly claim New Zealand’s leader is endorsing it.
A September 2023 post on the Facebook page of “Daily Pip Trade” (archived here) briefly shows footage of Mr Luxon, who became NZ PM last year, walking through a crowd and then cuts to him giving a speech.
The video appears to show Mr Luxon saying, among other things: “I am here today to share with you my excitement and enthusiasm for being part of the great vision of Daily Pip Trade”. Accompanying text shows what is claimed to be his entire speech.
The video and text are fake.
The voice heard in the video is out of sync with the movements of Mr Luxon’s mouth and is not Mr Luxon’s voice.
His real voice can be heard in the original video on the New Zealand National party’s Facebook page, where the footage was posted by the political party during the 2023 election campaign.
It shows Mr Luxon, who was then the opposition leader, and fellow National MP Chris Bishop with the party’s campaign slogan “Get NZ Back On Track” visible in the background.
In the video, Mr Luxon talks about prisons and crime.
Where the original video shows subtitles on screen, the altered version has a strap across the image to obscure them and instead features words from the fake speech.
The original video was a 21-second grab and on the fake video, which runs for 2min 45sec, it has been looped to repeat, as can be seen in Mr Luxon’s head and hand movements, which repeat throughout.
The video also briefly shows the words “authorised by Jo de Joux” with a Wellington address. Ms de Joux was the party’s campaign director and party secretary.
In another Daily Pip Trade post in December, a video from National’s campaign launch in September 2023 has been manipulated to spruik the page.
The altered video shows the same crowd and background as actual news footage from the launch and runs false audio of a speech over a variety of stock footage.
Subtitles superimposed on the video also misspell Mr Luxon’s name as “Laxon”.
The posts all include text about Daily Pip Trade and quotes attributed to Mr Luxon such as: “That is why I am here today to endorse Daily Pip Trade as the best online trading platform for New Zealanders” and “Daily Pip Trade is a company that I trust and recommend”.
Another fabricated Facebook post by Daily Pip Trade shows Mr Luxon at a summit meeting in Melbourne with Indonesian President Joko Widodo on March 5.
The post claims the images are from “a meeting today with members of the Daily Pip Trade Board of Management”.
Mr Luxon shared the images on his official Instagram account on March 5, posting that he was glad to meet with President Widodo to discuss trade and other issues.
The Facebook page for Daily Pip Trade claims it is based in London while a website linked to from Facebook page is suspended.
A March 20 post from the outfit claims it has moved its headquarters from London to “Madison, Wisconsin in the United States of America”. The post has a photo of a building with an American flag on it and a yellow taxi parked in front. On the building “Daily Pip Trade 2016-2024” and the outfit’s logo can be seen.
A Google image search shows the photo is in fact New York’s famous Park Lane Hotel, which is 1,500km away. The image comes from a free online image library and the “Daily Pip Trade 2016-2024” and logo do not appear in the image.
The Verdict
The claim that New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has promoted an online financial trading platform called Daily Pip Trade is false.
News footage, video from his political campaigning and images from his social media have been edited and overlaid with false audio, or presented out of context.
False – The claim is inaccurate.
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