Image of Biden planning military action in fatigues is fake
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on January 31, 2024 at 17:50
- Updated on April 29, 2024 at 17:13
- 3 min read
- By Bill MCCARTHY, AFP USA
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"Biden is right now in a meeting with the country's top military leadership," says a January 29, 2024 post from an account called "S p r i n t e r," which has previously spread other misinformation.
The image cropped up across X, where Donald Trump Jr, former president Donald Trump's eldest son, amplified it in a now-deleted post. The picture also spread in other languages, with some social media users claiming it shows Biden in the White House Situation Room.
The United States has promised a "very consequential" response after a January 28 drone attack the country blames on Iran-backed militants killed three US soldiers at a base in northeast Jordan. The strike marked the first American military deaths in the Middle East since the fighting between US ally Israel and Hamas began -- raising fears of an escalating conflict.
Biden, facing mounting pressure over his handling of the situation in an election year, said January 30 that he had decided on a response to the attack without providing much detail.
But the image of Biden in a military uniform is fake.
"This is an AI-generated image," said Hany Farid, a professor at the University of California-Berkeley and an expert in digital forensics, misinformation and image analysis.
"There are many tell-tale signs including the misinformed objects on the table, and the parallel lines along the ceiling tiles and table do not converge to a consistent vanishing point as you would expected in a real photo."
The hands are also misshapen -- and Biden, who is right-handed, appears to be holding something with his left. Realistic hands have proven difficult for AI technologies to create.
Among other clues the picture is inauthentic: heads and facial features are distorted, and Biden's ear appears different from real photos.
Reverse image searches did not return any results for the image's origin -- another indication it is likely fabricated.
Entrepreneur and author John LeFevre, whose X post Trump Jr re-shared, later deleted his message and said he "realized it was fake."
AFP contacted the White House for comment, but no response was forthcoming.
AFP has previously debunked other AI-generated images, including of Biden.
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