Authors
Pankaj Menon is a fact-checker based out of Delhi who enjoys ‘digital sleuthing’ and calling out misinformation. He has completed his MA in International Relations from Madras University and has worked with organisations like NDTV, Times Now and Deccan Chronicle online in the past.
Claim
Image showing team that rescued 41 workers who were trapped inside a tunnel in Uttarakhand.
The image was published by many publications including Hindustan Times on their Delhi edition crediting the image to PTI, and Dainik Bhaskar on their Facebook page.
Also read: Fake NDTV Poll Of Polls Graphics Shared To Claim Congress Majority In Telangana
Fact
The image was softened at places and the faces of the team looked touched up, raising our doubts. We analysed the image closely which revealed more inconsistencies. We noticed that the hands and fingers that were held up, were not aligned and were irregular, making us almost certain that the image is created by AI.
The eyes of a few of the men in the image were not clearly defined and were in soft focus. To further confirm our suspicions, we looked up the image on Hive AI detector, a tool to check if an image is AI detected or not, which revealed that the image is 99% AI generated, further confirming our suspicion.
We also conducted a reverse image search to find the source of the image, but it did not throw up anything relevant. Newschecker then continued by conducting a keyword search on social media which took us to a tweet by Anshul Saxena (@AskAnshul), which carried an art work of the rescue mission. When we scanned the comment section, we noticed that one of the users (@TheKhelIndia) had commented on another image, similar to the viral one, carrying the watermark of ‘Exclusive Minds’.
On perusing the page of ‘Exclusive minds’, we noticed that the page had tweeted a series of such images, and that they had clarified that the image is AI generated.
Result: False
Our Sources
Result by Hive AI detector
Tweet by @Exclusicev_Minds, dated November 29, 2023
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Authors
Pankaj Menon is a fact-checker based out of Delhi who enjoys ‘digital sleuthing’ and calling out misinformation. He has completed his MA in International Relations from Madras University and has worked with organisations like NDTV, Times Now and Deccan Chronicle online in the past.
