'Viral' photo of trampling on Indian flag was AI-generated: Rumour Scanner
Fact checking or information verifying agency Rumour Scanner has said the viral photo which showed a man wearing a punjabi and a cap and carrying a Bangladeshi flag while trampling on an Indian flag was AI-generated.
Several Indian news media and social media users have been spreading misinformation, fake information and rumours regarding the incidents in Bangladesh since the fall of the Awami League government on 5 August. As part of this, now they spread an AI-generated image on social media.
The Rumour Scanner published a report on the viral photo on Wednesday. It says the Rumour Scanner has found the photo to be a fake one during investigation. The photo of a man trampling on an Indian flag while carrying a Bangladeshi flag was created using artificial intelligence (AI).
Rumour Scanner used ‘reverse image search’ to verify the authenticity of the photo and found no credible source of the photo. The fact checking agency also found that the photo only exists on social media. In such cases, there should be reports on the national media regarding this. However, that was not the case.
Rumour Scanner deeply analysed the viral photo and found the person in the photo has abnormally short fingers on his right foot. There were also inconsistencies in the pyjamas he was wearing. Besides, the fold on the red circle on the Bangladeshi flag in the photo was not normal. Besides, there were inconsistencies in the photo in terms of light reflection, shadows and eye expression of the person in the photo. These are common flaws of AI-generated photos.
After detecting the inconsistencies, Rumour Scanner used AI detecting software for further verification. The result showed it was 99 per cent confirmed that the photo was AI generated.
According to the report of the Rumour Scanner, deep fake identifying platform Truemedia also confirmed manipulations on the photo that went viral which means the photo was created using AI technology. So the photo was not real.