Fake photos and videos generated by AI are increasingly flooding social media sites – AFP/File ALEX WROBLEWSKI
Anuji Chopra
Photos and videos generated by fake AIs attempting to show Donald Trump and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein interacting with a minor girl have flooded social media and accumulated millions of opinions, researchers said.
The surge in deepfakes is an attempt by the US president, who is frequently photographed with Epstein during his 15-year friendship, to distance himself from dishonest investors who died in prison while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
One of the widely circulated videos circulating in AI is the song “Is a Crime?”, which appears to show Trump and Epstein reeling in a group of young girls. It was added as background music by the English band Sade.
At least two other fake photos appear to show a pair on the couch along with a minor girl.
Such a photo is intended to show a card dancing with a teenage girl on Epstein's private island. An overlay of the image was, “Trump was in his 50s when this was filmed. What kind of guy is that?”
According to conservative estimates by Disformation Watchdog Group NewsGuard, at least seven such AINEREATED images and one video cumulatively won over 7.2 million views across social media platforms.
Watchdog used multiple detection tools, including Hive and Identifai, to make sure that the content is being manufactured using AI tools, and said that the number of actual views is much more likely than manual aggregation of high engagement posts.
Trump's relationship with Epstein was extensive, and the pair were frequently portrayed as partying together during friendships before they fell through real estate transactions in 2004.
However, there appears to be no known authentic photos of the pair with a minor girl or a Trump visiting a private island in Epstein in the Caribbean, News Guard said.
AI Slops – low-quality visual content generated using cheap and widely available artificial intelligence tools – floods social media sites and appears to blur the line between reality and fiction.
Many content creators on YouTube and Tiktok offer paid courses on how to monetize virus AI slops on high-tech platforms.
Trump's AI-generated images spread rapidly after the FBI and the Justice Department said in a July 7 memo that there was no evidence that Epstein maintains the “client list” of elite co-conspirators as conspiracy theorists argue.
Trump's core makes America great again (Maga)bass erupted in anger at the memo, calling on the White House to release the so-called “Epstein Files.”
Even within the Republican president's own party, some have requested that the file be released, but his administration refused to do so. The fake image appears to gain traction in that vacuum.
The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the president's name is among the hundreds discovered during the official review of the file, but there was no evidence of fraud.
Last week, Trump filed a $10 billion defamatory lawsuit against the newspaper after reporting that he wrote a sexually suggestive letter to Epstein on his 50th birthday in 2003.
