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| - Fact Check: This photo of French farmers' protest at the Eiffel Tower is AI-generated
India Today found that the viral photo was created using Midjourney, an AI tool.
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India Today Fact Check
The photo is AI-generated.
While French farmers' unions are now in the process of halting protests involving tractor blockades a photo showing a Parisian protest scene with tractors and hay heaps near the Eiffel Tower has gone viral on social media.
A Facebook user who shared the viral photo wrote, “French farmers by Eiffel Tower yesterday.” An archived version of the post can be seen here.
French farmers have been protesting against green rules, taxes, rising costs, and unfair competition from abroad.
India Today found that the viral photo was generated using Artificial Intelligence.
Our Probe
A reverse image search led us to the Instagram user “thetrillionairelife”, which shared the photo on February 2 crediting another account, “Ifonly.ai”, for creating it using Midjourney, a generative-AI tool.
“Ifonly.ai”, a Paris-based Instagram account, explicitly states in its bio that its posts are AI-generated images. In its bio, “Ifonly.ai” credits Midjourney as the tool used to create images. Further, the account posted a story acknowledging how one of its photos went viral with misleading claims. It also shared fact-checks by Forbes and Channel 4 about it.
India Today reached out to the account. The person who runs the account said, “Yes, I am the artist who AI-generated the viral picture of farmers/Eiffel Tower. I was inspired by the context in Paris. But I wrote an important disclaimer which wasn’t respected.”
We checked the account and found that the viral post contained the disclaimer: “This series was generated by Al on Midjourney. To prevent any fake news related to the above photos, please specify when sharing that these are not real but Al-generated images.”
Thus, it’s clear that an AI-generated image of the Eiffel Tower is being shared with misleading claims.
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