Molloy: People Are Sharing Fake Hurricane Helene Photos for Profit and Political Gain

[Nevilledog]

https://www.readtpa.com/p/people-are-sharing-fake-hurricane

“This picture has been seared into my mind,” wrote Amy Kremer. “My heart hurts,” she added alongside broken heart and crying emojis.

The picture in question, which had also been shared by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), showed a crying girl holding a puppy being rescued from what appeared to be the devastation of Hurricane Helene.

There’s just one problem: it was fake, an AI-generated creation.

Kremer is a right-wing political activist who has been using her feed to torch the Joe Biden administration for supposedly mishandling the response to Helene (though there’s little evidence that the response has been in any way mishandled). She’s an RNC National Committeewoman for Georgia Republicans, the founder of Women for Trump, and most famously helped organize the rally that immediately preceded the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“Y’all, I don’t know where this photo came from and honestly, it doesn’t matter,” she wrote in response to the dozens of people in her replies. “It is seared into my mind forever. There are people going through much worse than what is shown in this pic. So I’m leaving it because it is emblematic of the trauma and pain people are living through right now.”

*snip*

[eppur_se_muova]

1. "More convincing than the truth" is a VERY slippery slope -- it's best avoided. nt

[Eugene]

2. Rolling Stone: Right-Wingers Heartbroken by Picture of Little Girl Who Doesn't Exist

Right-Wingers Heartbroken by Picture of Little Girl Who Doesn’t Exist (Rolling Stone)

The AI-generated image they’re sharing depicts a crying girl in a boat, seemingly alone except for the little dog she’s clutching. She wears a lifejacket and appears to be adrift on floodwaters caused by a major storm. Sen. Mike Lee of Utah posted the picture on X on Thursday, writing “Caption this photo,” apparently inviting his followers to vent their outrage at the Biden-Harris administration for allowing American children to suffer such misery on their watch. After users pointed out that he’d fallen for AI slop, he deleted the picture. (The image originated on the Trump web forum Patriots.win, where several users immediately recognized it as the product of an AI model.)

Others, however, have left the misleading picture up on their social media accounts — and some are defending it as an accurate representation of Helene’s effects even though it’s fake. Far-right conspiracy theorist and Donald Trump associate Laura Loomer called the image “sad,” quote-tweeting a post from Buzz Patterson, columnist for the conservative blog RedState, who wrote of the picture: “Our government has failed us again.” Neither have taken their posts down as of press time. Amy Kremer, RNC National Committeewoman for the Georgia GOP and co-founder of Women for Trump, tweeted on Thursday that the image had been “seared into my mind.”

Informed that she was not looking at an authentic photo, Kremer doubled down. “Y’all, I don’t know where this photo came from and honestly, it doesn’t matter,” she replied. ...

https://news.yahoo.com/news/wingers-heartbroken-picture-little-girl-212703410.html