On Monday, several verified Twitter accounts shared a fake image purporting to show an explosion near the Pentagon., which created confusion and caused a brief crash in the stock market. Local officials later confirmed that no such incident had occurred.
The image, which has all the characteristics of having been generated by artificial intelligence, was shared by numerous verified accounts with blue checkmarks, including one that falsely claimed it was associated with Bloomberg News.
Posted Image
“Large explosion near the Pentagon complex in Washington DC. – initial report”, published the account, along with an image purporting to show black smoke rising near a large building.
The account has since been suspended by Twitter. It was not clear who was behind the account or where the image originated. A Bloomberg News spokesperson said the account is not affiliated with the news organization.
Under owner Elon Musk, Twitter has allowed anyone to get a verified account in exchange for a monthly payment. As a result, Twitter verification is no longer an indicator that an account represents who it claims to represent.
Reports
False reports of the explosion also made it to the air on a major Indian television network. Republic TV reported that an explosion had occurred, showing the fake image on air and citing reports by Russian news outlet RT. He later retracted the report when it became clear that the incident had not occurred.
“Republic had broadcast news of a possible explosion near the Pentagon citing a post and image tweeted by RT,” the outlet later posted on its Twitter account. “RT removed the post and Republic took down the story.”
Release
In a statement, the RT press office said: “As with fast-paced news fact-checking, we inform the public about reports that are circulating, and once provenance and veracity have been determined, we take appropriate action to correct the reports.”
In a post on the Russian social media platform VKontakte on Tuesday, RT tried to downplay his apparent mistake.
“Is the Pentagon on fire? Look, there’s a photo and everything. It’s not real, it’s just an AI generated image. Still, this image managed to fool several major media outlets full of supposedly smart and attractive people,” an RT post read.
Affected Industries
Moments after the image began circulating on Twitter, the US stock market plunged noticeably. The Dow Jones industrial average fell about 80 points between 10:06 a.m. and 10:10 a.m., recovering fully by 10:13 a.m. Similarly, the broader S&P 500 went from a 0.02% rise at 10:06 a.m. to a 0.15% drop at 10:00 a.m.:09 a.m. At 10:11 a.m., the index it was positive again.
The building in the image does not look much like the Pentagon and, according to experts, it shows signs that it may have been created with AI.
“This image shows typical signs of being synthesized by AI: there are structural errors in the building and fence that you wouldn’t see if, for example, someone added smoke to an existing photo,” said Hany Farid, a professor at the University of California. , Berkeley, and a digital forensics expert told CNN.
The Arlington, Virginia, fire department later responded in a tweet, stating that it and the Pentagon Force Protection Agency were “aware of a social media report circulating online about an explosion near the Pentagon. There is NO explosion or incident taking place on or near the Pentagon reservation, and there is no immediate danger or risk to the public.”