Authors
Kushel HM is a mechanical engineer-turned-journalist, who loves all things football, tennis and films. He was with the news desk at the Hindustan Times, Mumbai, before joining Newschecker.
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
Photo of West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee when she was 25.
The archived version of the post can be seen here. We have received this claim on our Whatsapp tipline (9999499044), too, requesting us to fact-check it.
Fact
Newchecker ran a reverse image search, which did not throw up any credible news reports or official records of the photo. Also, a closer look revealed telltale signs of AI-generated imagery — extra sharpness and an overly smooth texture — contradicting the claim of it being an authentic black-and-white photo.
A further search led us to this Facebook post by a Bangladesh-based clothing brand that promotes sarees, dated July 15, 2024, sharing a photo (left) similar to the viral image, further raising our doubts on whether it was manipulated using AI.
We ran the original photo and a couple of images of Mamata Banerjee past two face-swapping AI tools, which gave us these results, seen here and here.
We can clearly see that a black-and-white, edited version (right) of the result (left) had gone viral, claiming to be an old photo of Banerjee when she was 25.
Result: Altered Media
Sources
Facebook post, Jannat Closet, July 15, 2024
Remaker tool
Faceswapper.ai tool
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Authors
Kushel HM is a mechanical engineer-turned-journalist, who loves all things football, tennis and films. He was with the news desk at the Hindustan Times, Mumbai, before joining Newschecker.
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.
