The combination of paid blue checks and generative AI has made it alarmingly easy to spread misinformation, a fact that surprises no one. A recent incident involving a fabricated image of an explosion at the Pentagon demonstrates the potential dangers.
Within a short span of about half an hour, the image surfaced on a verified Twitter account named “Bloomberg Feed,” which could easily be mistaken for an authentic Bloomberg-affiliated account due to its blue checkmark.
However, the account has since been suspended. The Russian state-controlled news network RT also shared the image before swiftly deleting the tweet. Numerous Twitter accounts with large followings, including DeItaone, OSINTdefender, and Whale Chart, also disseminated the image. Even an Indian television network reported the false Pentagon explosion. The origin of this fake image and accompanying news story remains unclear.
While fake images have fooled the internet in the past, the stakes are higher when the deception involves an explosion at a US government building, rather than a trivial matter. Some reports suggested a potential link between the fake image and a 25 basis point movement in the S&P 500, but the impact was brief, and it is impossible to definitively attribute it to this particular hoax. However, the incident raises concerns about the potential use of generative AI to manipulate the stock market, as demonstrated by previous events involving Reddit.
Misinformation has long plagued the internet, but the concurrent rise of generative AI and changes in Twitter’s verification system provide fertile ground for its proliferation. Twitter owner Elon Musk’s plan to revoke blue checkmarks from existing accounts and allow anyone to pay for verification has proven to be chaotic from the outset.
Despite the awareness that blue checks no longer signify credibility, breaking the visual association cultivated over almost 15 years is challenging. When encountering an account named “Bloomberg Feed” with a blue checkmark, discussing a Pentagon attack, it’s natural to lean towards perceiving it as real. As the identification of fake images becomes increasingly difficult, false news reports like this are likely to persist in the future.
