Amidst the protests by farmers in France and other European regions grappling with the European Union’s climate policies, an image is being circulated, claiming to show farmers dumping hay in Paris. The farmers have raised various issues in their protests, including declining income and competition from subsidised markets abroad, like Ukraine.
The picture is shared on Facebook with a caption: “Farmers protest, France.”
Here’s the link to the above post.
FACT CHECK
NewsMobile fact-checked the above picture, and found it to be AI-generated.
Running a Reverse Image Search of the image, the NM team traced a LinkedIn post by Vincent Smadja, an AI artist, carrying the same picture on February 01, 2024, with a caption: “The City of Paris transformed into a countryside. 👨🏻🌾 As highways have become tractor circuits, I imagined what Paris would be like if farmers passed through the gates of Paris. Please do not share this series without mentioning that it has been generated by AI to prevent fake news in the current context. The complete series in the comments of this post ✨.” It indicates that the image is AI-generated.
With a keyword search, our team spotted an Instagram story on his account ‘ifonly.ai’ which led us to the reel from Channel4news carrying similar visuals with a caption: The viral images of farmers piling hay bales in Paris and the Eiffel Tower on fire are actually AI-generated.
Hence, it is clear that a Paris-based visual artist created an AI-generated image that was falsely linked to French farmers’ protest.
If you want to fact-check any story, WhatsApp it now on +91 11 7127 9799
Error: Contact form not found.