Fact check: AI fakes around the World Cup spread political narratives
Keir Starmer in a Croatia jersey. An Iranian protest against a US strike. Calls to arrest Brazil's President Lula. Adolf Hitler in the German fan
Keir Starmer in a Croatia jersey. An Iranian protest against a US strike. Calls to arrest Brazil's President Lula. Adolf Hitler in the German fan section — all circulating around the World Cup. But none of it is real. You may well have seen one of these images yourself. Some have racked up millions of views as they go viral on social media. One of the most-viewed photos shows a fan in the stadium wearing a Germany jersey, waving a German flag, and bearing a striking resemblance to Adolf Hitler, a fake that DW's Fact Check team debunked shortly after Germany's World Cup match against Curacao. Some of these images we spot as fake right away; others we might easily mistake for real. Either way, they're having an effect. "It is an event that gets billions of people around the world from different countries, different regions, different political circumstances, all watching the same matches at the same time," said Henry Ajder, one of the world's leading experts on deepfakes and manipulative AI. "It is the perfect environment for people to start spreading deepfakes and AI generated content," he said, adding some were trying to change narratives to the rest of the world. That's exactly what's playing out on social media right now. Alongside the more lighthearted World Cup deepfakes, plenty carrying political messages are going viral too. DW Fact Check examined several of them and shows how you can spot the fakes yourself. An Iranian protest with a pink backpack? Before the conflict between Iran and the US had even ended, Iran kicked off its World Cup campaign against New Zealand, coming away with a point in a 2-2 (1-1) draw. But did one of the players really mark the result with a protest gesture? An OpenAI analysis of this viral World Cup image shows that it was created using OpenAI tools Image: Open AI Claim: An image of an Iranian footballer holding up a pink backpack went viral on social media. "Paying tribute to the 168 school girls murdered by Donald Trump," reads one post that racked up around three million views.
DW Fact Check: Fake The image doesn't show a scene from Iran's World Cup match, and it doesn't show any of Iran's actual World Cup players, either. No such protest took place during the match against New Zealand, and the player in the photo doesn't match anyone on Iran's World Cup squad. Iran's actual World Cup jersey looks different, too. The stadium doesn't match up either: the arena in the image looks noticeably different from the World Cup stadium in Los Angeles where the game was played; even the shape of the stands is different. The fake does have a real event behind it, though: Iranian fans staged genuine protests in the stands at the Los Angeles match, some commemorating children allegedly killed by the US in a school in the Iranian city of Minab. Reporting by outlets such as The New York Times and investigations by Bellingcat have pointed to possible US military involvement in that strike, which killed more than 150 people. But the viral image of a player protesting the incident is fabricated. Keir Starmer in a Croatia jersey? Would a British prime minister really pose in the rival team's jersey right before England's opening match? Seems unlikely, yet that's exactly what social media would have you believe. A viral image circulating on X shows Starmer smiling alongside three other people in a pub, all of them wearing Croatia jerseys — England's first opponent of the tournament. Left: the real photo featuring Starmer (third from left); the photo on the right is fake Image: Facebook/X Claim: As England went on to win that opener 4-2 (2-2), users shared the photo with captions like "Spotted at the London Inn in Dallas before the England vs Croatia World Cup match" and "Starmer and his mates ready for the game." DW Fact Check: Fake A quick Google search for "Keir Starmer pub football fans" turned up the original photo: same pub, same people — including former Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner — but different outfits. Three of them are wearing England jerseys, and Starmer is in a plain white T-shirt.
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