Exposing Venezuelan Victory Footage and AI Images of Maduro.
Synthetic pictures purporting to depict Venezuela's president in custody after his apprehension by the US have garnered countless of views across the internet.
The Way Fake Pictures of Maduro Appeared Rapidly
Initial fabricated synthetic picture seemingly showing him led off a plane circulated a brief time later. The graphic was not shared any official American sources; rather, it was posted on X by an account purporting to be an “AI video art enthusiast”.
Our analysis used Google’s SynthID, determining the image was generated or edited with Google AI.
Additional synthetic visuals started circulating in the ensuing hours, appearing to show different views of the leader detained. Discernible logos on these pictures indicate they came from an Instagram account called ultravfx.
The detection tool indicates all of these pictures were also created or altered Google AI.
Real Photo Posted but Fakes Continued
The former US president released the first real photo of Nicolás Maduro in handcuffs aboard the USS Iwo Jima on Saturday morning. Yet following this real photo was made public, synthetic images kept circulating but were updated to incorporate the grey tracksuit seen on Maduro.
Reverse image searches reveal these updated fakes were first posted on TikTok by a graphic design account. Again, the AI-watermark detector found the new graphics were produced with generative artificial intelligence.
Main Takeaways:
- Deepfakes circulated quickly after the announcement of Maduro's capture.
- The initial fabricated picture appeared very quickly on platform X.
- Tools like Google’s SynthID helped to identify the pictures as synthetic.
- Fake images continued to spread and be updated despite the release of real photographs.
- The source of many fakes was traced to social media accounts dedicated to AI art.
