Artificial intelligence

AI clip of man riding horse with Australian flag misleads

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On the heels of news coverage of an influencer riding a horse and waving a Palestinian flag on a popular Sydney beach, a video of a rider brandishing Australia's flag was shared on social media, with users praising the equestrian for being an "absolute legend". But the clip is AI-generated, identified by clear visual discrepancies including onlookers having freakish features and an incorrect number of stars on the banner.

"Bondi Beach Horseman 'Returns' With Australian Flag," reads the September 9, 2025 post on an Australian Facebook page, which got some 231,000 views and was shared more than 1,200 times.

It shares a video of a rider hoisting up an Australian flag and striding on a beach as onlookers appeared to cheer in support.

Screenshot of the false Facebook post taken on September 15, with a red X added by AFP

Local outlets reported a man rode through Bondi Beach carrying a Palestinian flag, coming after Sydney saw protests over Israel's war in Gaza (archived here and here).

The rider Ehtesham Ahmad -- an influencer who calls himself "your one and only horse guy" -- also posted TV news coverage of his stroll through the beach on his Instagram page (archived link).

The video of the rider with the Australian flag was also shared by other Facebook and TikTok users, drawing comments from people who believed it to be genuine.

"Lovely to see our Union Jack on Bondi Beach!" said one supporter, while another commenter who thought the rider was a woman said they were "surprised the cops aren't arresting her".

But a closer look at the video reveals distinct visual discrepancies that are hallmarks of AI-generated content, including the couple's hands at the beginning of the video appearing awry and the "zombified" faces of the onlookers cheering the rider on.

Screenshots of visual discrepancies in the AI-generated video, with the couple's hands and onlookers' ghost-like faces highlighted by a magnifying tool and a red square added by AFP

A further analysis also found the Australian flag the rider is carrying has one too many stars compared to a genuine flag (archived link). 

Comparison between the flag in the false video (left) and a real Australian flag, with differences highlighted by AFP in red

The video's soundtrack was detected to be made by Google AI.

The ability to detect AI-generated images is based on Google's SynthID technology, launched by its DeepMind AI lab in 2023 (archived here and here).

Screenshot of the SynthID detecting that the audio of the fake video was made with Google AI, taken on September 16

The Australian Associated Press has also debunked the fake video (archived link). 

AFP has fact-checked other claims related to AI here.

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