Fake Mark Carney images emerge as Canada leadership race heats up
- Published on January 31, 2025 at 20:35
- 6 min read
- By Gwen Roley, AFP Canada
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"Mark Carney is upset these photos are being shown," reads the caption of a January 22, 2025 image posted to X.
The image, also posted to Facebook, appears to depict Carney shoulder-to-shoulder with Maxwell, the British socialite convicted of child sex-trafficking. A different image of Carney supposedly fraternizing with Maxwell circulated around the same time on TikTok, Facebook and X.
Other visuals of the Liberal leadership candidate either with Epstein, Maxwell's collaborator, or Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum (WEF), spread over the course of January 2025 on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and X.
Some of the photos were also shared in French language posts.
Carney is the former governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, the central banks of Canada and Britain, respectively. He has been the subject of misinformation since announcing his candidacy on January 16, seeking to replace Justin Trudeau as the Liberal leader and Canadian prime minister.
His appearances at the World Economic Forum have been much maligned (archived here), while the international lobbying organization and Schwab himself are frequent touchstones of misleading claims and conspiracy theories.
Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2022 and Epstein died by suicide in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex crimes. The pair are often the subject of false claims and altered images.
Similarly, these four images circulating of Carney with Maxwell, Epstein and Schwab appear to be manipulated or generated by artificial intelligence.
Maxwell images
AFP could not find visual matches posted earlier than January 2025 for the two images which appear to depict Carney and Maxwell close together. Furthermore, there are versions of both pictures with the watermark for Grok -- X's AI model -- implying the images are generated. AFP debunked visual hoaxes which were similarly watermarked as generations by GrokAI.
An image of Carney, his wife Diana Fox Carney and a woman who resembles Maxwell spread across social media around January 6. A reverse image search of this picture does reveal an image saved to the stock photo site Shutterstock (archived here), with a caption that says it shows Carney with his wife and "friends" at an outdoor festival in the United Kingdom in 2013 while he was governor of the Bank of England.
AFP reached out to the Carney campaign, but it declined to comment on the matter.
Schwab and Epstein pictures
AFP ran the image supposedly showing Carney and Schwab through a tool for detecting synthetic media developed by GetReal Labs which said its models "weakly suggest that the image is natural," while also saying the evidence was not strong or conclusive. The tool's Paired Model "found strong evidence suggesting the image is synthetic."
The hand which appears over Carney's shoulder is also warped and missing a nail on the thumb.
A reverse image search did not reveal any versions of the photo from before January 2025, while one of the first posts to share it on TikTok on January 16 frequently shares news-interest content with obviously AI-generated photos.
In the picture allegedly showing Carney and Epstein in a swimming pool, one of the background figures similarly has a warped arm. The fact-checking site LeadStories also ran this image through an AI-detection tool and ruled it was inauthentic.
Carney is currently the candidate with the most endorsements within the Liberal caucus, while his competitors -- including former deputy prime minster Chrystia Freeland and Government House Leader Karina Gould -- continue to campaign. The new Liberal leader, who will automatically become Canada's prime minister, is set to be announced on March 9.
Read more of AFP's reporting on misinformation in Canada here.
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