Image of Indian nutritionist arriving in Indonesia is made with AI
- Published on November 27, 2025 at 10:30
- 2 min read
- By AFP Indonesia
Copyright © AFP 2017-2025. Any commercial use of this content requires a subscription. Click here to find out more.
Indonesia's free meal programme has faced public backlash after thousands fell ill from food poisoning. The Southeast Asian nation has expressed interest to learn from India which has implemented a similar scheme, but an image purporting to show an Indonesian minister welcoming an Indian nutritionist is in fact AI-generated. An Indonesian official told AFP no nutritionists from India have flown in to assist them.
"BREAKING NEWS. Nutritionist from India has officially arrived in Indonesia to help supervise the free meal programme," says Indonesian-language superimposed text on a TikTok video shared on November 5, 2025.
The post includes an image of Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Bahlil Lahadalia shaking hands with a man in a blue T-shirt.
"This decision is expected to help strengthen supervision and ensure people could receive a balanced nutritional intake," the caption says.
The same post has also been shared on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, X and Threads.
The claim began circulating after Indonesia's National nutrition agency (BGN) head Dadan Hindayana said in October that they wil seek technical guidance from India in improving the quality of Indonesia's free meal programme (archived here).
Prabowo's ambitious $4.3 billion programme launched in January to provide free nutritious meals to tens of millions of school children and pregnant women (archived link). The campaign faced public backlash after thousands fell ill from food poisoning, mounting into calls for its suspension (archived link).
But the image was generated with AI, while the programme's spokesperson said the claims are false.
Google's SynthID Detector -- a tool launched in May 2025 to identify AI-generated content -- detected digital watermarks that indicated it was created using its generative AI tools (archived here and here).
AFP spotted visual inconsistencies indicative of AI-generated content in the image.
The photographers and cameramen are all positioned behind -- instead of in front -- of the two men standing and Bahlil is also not related to Indonesia's free meal programme. One of the men's fists also looked misshapen.
"All of them [posts] are false," BGN spokeswoman Dian Fatwa told AFP on Friday.
She added there is still "no plan" to collaborate further with India and ensured that all nutritionists in the programme are Indonesians.
AFP has previously debunked misinformation about Indonesia's government programmes.
Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.
Contact us
