Facts Matter: Leaf blower vs. pepper spray photo is fake
Government efforts against illegal immigration in Minneapolis, Minnesota, have led to confrontations between protesters and federal immigration and border control agents. The conflict has resulted in the death of two U.S. citizens, Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti.
The confrontations have featured federal agents using tear gas to break up crowds or subdue protesters. But a Jan. 23 social media post included a photo showing a man using a unique method to fight back.
In the photo, the man, dressed in a winter coat and boots, stands near a pile of snow, holding a leaf blower with “SELF-DEFENSE” written on the blower tube. Across from that man is a person, dressed in fatigues, spraying a can of what appears to be pepper spray. But the man is using the leaf blower to spray the pepper spray back at the officer.
The post is captioned, “Leaf blowers are awesome for blowing tear gas at ICE.” However, the photo is fake, according to Reuters. The image was created with Artificial Intelligence, or AI.
An analysis by Google’s SynthID detection tool identified the image as AI-generated content. “The tool detects all or parts of imperceptible watermarks that are present in content generated by Google’s AI models,” Reuters said.
Global warming still here
President Donald Trump appears to be fed up with winter.
“Record Cold Wave expected to hit 40 States. Rarely seen anything like it before,” the president wrote on his social media platform Truth Social. “Could the Environmental Insurrectionists please explain — WHATEVER HAPPENED TO GLOBAL WARMING???”
But Trump’s reasoning is off, according to The Associated Press.
“Global warming hasn’t gone anywhere, it’s here,” Princeton University climate scientist Gabriel Vecchi told the AP.
Meteorologists said government records show there have been much colder winters in the past. And the past three years have been the warmest on record, with temperatures increasing at a faster rate than previously.
“Even as the Earth warms, cold days and cold winters are not projected to disappear, just become fewer in number,” Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer told the AP.
Macron didn’t talk about war
A recent social media post appears to show French President Emmanuel Macron, in a Jan. 15 speech to France’s military, saying he is ready to go to war.
“Yes, I am not afraid of Vladimir Putin or Trump. If they want war, I am ready for it, because France also has other African countries that would stand by it in the event of war,” Macron supposedly says during the speech.
But this video has been manipulated, according to Reuters. There are no other credible news reports of this happening.
The clip appears to be doctored, Natalia Stanusch, from AI Forensics, told Reuters. Macron’s lip movements don’t match the words he is saying.
Martin Barry, from Martin Barry Forensic Voice Services, told Reuters that the original audio has been replaced with audio from a different source.
Snow drift is AI-generated
Russia, like other parts of the world, is dealing with winter’s ice and snow. A social media post includes a video of people in Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula sledding down a huge snow drift, which is between a couple of very tall buildings. Then in a second scene, a very large snow drift collapses covering everything along a street. The post has nearly a million views on X.
But these clips aren’t real, according to BBC News. Trying to slide down a drift that big would be impossible. People would just sink into the snow.
The BBC’s AI checker Henk van Ess said the video was fake. He added that if the clips are good enough to fool so many, “we’ve got a verification crisis.”
“Today it's pretty snow footage. Tomorrow it's a fabricated disaster or conflict zone,” Van Ess said. “Every time media runs these without checking, they're training audiences to either believe everything or nothing.”
• Bob Oswald is a veteran Chicago-area journalist and former news editor of the Elgin Courier-News. Contact him at boboswald33@gmail.com.