When the clip landed on the desk of Kristen Griffith, an education reporter at the Baltimore Banner, she thought it was going be a relatively straightforward story of a teacher being exposed for making offensive remarks.

    But as is best-practice in journalism, Ms Griffith wanted to give the principal the chance to comment and tell his side of the story. So, she reached out to his union representative, who said not only did Mr Eiswert condemn the comments, but he didn’t make them.

    “He said right away, oh, we think this is fake… We believe it's AI,” she told the BBC. “I hadn't heard that angle” before.

    But when she published that explanation, her readers were not convinced. Far from raising questions about the clip’s veracity, it just fuelled backlash from people who thought the allegation of fakery was just an excuse or an attempt to evade accountability.