Viral Photo Claiming To Show Greta Thunberg On Gaza Aid Ship Intercepted By Israel Is AI-Generated

Claim

Photo claiming to show climate activist Greta Thunberg donning a keffiyeh, which is a traditional Arab headdress, while sipping a cocktail, aboard the Gaza-bound aid ship that was intercepted by Israel.

The archived version of the post can be seen here, which has clocked 325.6K views so far.

Greta Thunberg ‘Kidnapped’?

Israeli troops have reportedly taken control of the British-flagged charity vessel Madleen early on Monday, which had tried to break a naval blockade of the Gaza Strip. The boat, operated by the pro-Palestinian Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC), with its crew of 12, including activist Greta Thunberg, is now heading to a port in Israel, even as Thunberg had urged for international pressure to secure the crew’s release in a video message. Amid the allegations that the activists were “intercepted and kidnapped in international waters” by Israeli occupational forces, Israel’s foreign ministry later posted a picture of the Swedish climate activist on X, saying, “Greta Thunberg is currently on her way to Israel, safe and in good spirits.”

Fact

Newschecker noticed the watermark of ‘Grok’, a generative AI chatbot that can generate images based on text prompts, on the bottom-right corner, indicating that it was not an actual photo.

We also noticed the overly glossy texture of the photo, which further suggests that it was AI-generated. We ran the image past Hive Moderation, an AI-image detection tool, which said it is 99.9% likely to contain AI-generated or deepfake content. Similarly, the SightEngine tool said that the image was 99% likely to be AI-generated.

Also Read: Trump Vs Musk: US President Bans Tesla Production? No, Viral Video Is Deepfake

Source
HiveModeration tool
SightEngine tool