FACT CHECK: Viral X Image Purporting To Show U.K. Police Bowing To Muslims Is AI-Generated
A viral image shared on X (formerly Twitter) claims to show U.K. police officers bowing to a group of Muslims, accompanied by the caption, “This image reflects current policing strategy perfectly,” from Paul Golding, leader of the right-wing Britain First party. However, a fact-check reveals the claim to be false. A content detection scan by Hive Moderation indicates the image is 99.2% likely to be AI-generated or a deepfake, potentially created using the program Stable Diffusion. Additionally, recent reports confirm a 15-year-old boy has been charged with rioting linked to a series of disturbances in the U.K., contradicting the implication of the viral image.
A viral image shared on X purports to show U.K. police officers bowing to a group of Muslims.
This image reflects current policing strategy perfectly. pic.twitter.com/QEOUAzEbY5
— Paul Golding (@GoldingBF) August 15, 2024
Verdict: False
The claim is false. A content detection scan using the website “Hive Moderation” reveals the image is 99.2% likely to “contain artificial intelligence (AI)- generated or deepfake content.” A media forensics and AI expert denied the image’s authenticity in an email to Check Your Fact.
Fact Check:
A 15-year-old boy is the first person to be charged with rioting following a series of riots that have impacted the U.K., according to The Associated Press. The teenager was charged with “following disorder” and also pleaded guilty to “separate charges of violent disorder and burglary,” the outlet reported.
The X image, viewed over 500,000 times as of writing, purports to show U.K. police officers bowing to a group of Muslims. “This image reflects current policing strategy perfectly,” the image’s caption reads. The image was shared by Paul Golding, leader of the right-wing Britain First party.
The claim is false. A content detection scan using the website “Hive Moderation” reveals the image is 99.2% likely to “contain AI-generated or deepfake content.” According to the results of the same scan, the image was probably generated using the program Stable Diffusion.
Screenshot captured via Hive Moderation
Likewise, Check Your Fact did not find the image referenced in any recent credible news reports about the U.K. In fact, the opposite is true. On August 16, Misbar reported the image was AI-generated, having also run a content detection scan using “Hive Moderation.”
Additionally, an August 15 post shared on X by Olga Robinson, assistant editor at BBC Verify, indicates the image is not authentic.
“The poster doesn’t make it clear but the image is clearly AI generated. You can see some heads missing, extra feet and some slightly odd body shapes,” Robinson said via the same post. (RELATED: Video Of Boats Of Migrants Arriving From Sea Is From Spain 2023, Not 2024 In U.K.)
The AI image appears to reference recent riots occurring in the U.K. The riots were sparked by a stabbing that killed three young girls in Southport, according to Reuters. False claims spread online that the alleged perpetrator of the stabbing was an Islamist migrant, the outlet reported.
Dr. Walter Scheirer, a media forensics and AI expert at the University of Notre Dame, denied the image’s authenticity in an email to Check Your Fact.
“This photo is likely the product of a generative AI algorithm. An extra foot is visible extending from the leg of the officer second from the left in the lower left-hand corner of the image. That type of artifact is characteristic of generative AI algorithms, which do not have a sense of physical plausibility,” Scheirer said.
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