A number of images generated by Artificial Intelligence (AI) are doing rounds on social media platforms which caught the attention of the US voters. As the US Presidential elections nears, the campaigning is picking pace. The supporters of the leaders are also going out of their way to ensure that their preferred candidate wins. One such case was spotted by the BBC Panorama in which some AI-generated images of former US President Donald Trump with a bunch of African American people were seen posted on social media platforms.
According to a BBC report, BBC Panorama discovered dozens of deepfakes portraying black people as supporting the former president.
Trump has openly courted black voters, who played a crucial role in Joe Biden's election win in 2020. However, if we talk about these pictures then there is no evidence which directly links these images to Trump's campaign.
The co-founder of Black Voters Matter, an organisation that encourages black voter participation, stated that the manipulated images aimed to promote a "strategic narrative," portraying Trump as popular within the black community.
Creators Of These Deepfakes On Their Post
A creator of one of the images told the BBC, "I'm not claiming it's accurate."
The AI-generated images discovered by the BBC seemed like they were made and shared by US voters themselves. Among a few of the people who shared it were Mark Kaye and his team at a conservative radio show in Florida. When BBC asked him about his posts, he responded by saying, "I'm not a photojournalist. I'm not out there taking pictures of what's really happening. I'm a storyteller."
He published an article highlighting black voters endorsing Trump and appended this image, creating the impression that these individuals were all supporting the former president's White House candidacy.
In the Facebook comments, some users seemed to perceive the AI-generated image as genuine.
BBC quoted Kaye as saying, "I am not claiming it is accurate. I'm not saying, 'Hey, look, Donald Trump was at this party with all of these African American voters. Look how much they love him! If anybody's voting one way or another because of one photo they see on a Facebook page, that's a problem with that person, not with the post itself.'"
In another widely circulated AI-generated image, Trump is depicted posing with black voters on a front porch. Initially shared by a satirical account that produces images of the former president, it gained significant traction when reposted with a misleading caption, falsely suggesting that he had halted his motorcade to engage with these individuals.