Fact Check: This Image Depicting Bangladesh’s Protest Is Symbolic And AI-created

New Delhi (Vishvas News). Amidst the ongoing protest in Bangladesh against the quota system and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s resignation, a picture is going viral on social media depicting a large crowd on the roads with people seen waving the Bangladesh’s flag on a pole. Many users are making it viral on different platforms.

In its investigation, Vishvas News found that the viral image is not real but a symbolic image created using Artificial Intelligence (AI). The claim of it being a real image is fake.

What is in the viral post?

A Facebook user shared the viral image with the caption, “Hunger and unemployment often eat away at the thrones of dictators!!” If people come out on the streets, even the Prime Minister has to flee the country!! The picture came from Bangladesh today. #SheikhHasina #Bangladesh.”

View the archived version of the post here.

Investigation

To begin our investigation, we closely examined the viral photo and identified many flaws in the photo. The hands and legs of the people climbing the pole appeared artificial, while the crowd below was blurred. Apart from this, the bushes seen in the photo are also out of focus and the structure of the building behind is also distorted. These issues led us to suspect that the picture was AI-generated.

We uploaded the viral photo to Hive Moderation, a tool designed to detect AI-generated content that indicated the probability of the photo being AI-generated was 99.6 percent.

We also checked the photo on isitai.com, another tool to detect AI-generated content, which suggests a 64 per cent probability of the content being AI-generated.

AI expert Bhargav Valera also confirmed that the photo is AI-generated, pointing out the visible flaws.

According to reports, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has resigned amid violent protests in Bangladesh, which have led to looting, vandalism, violence, and even murders taking place on a large scale. For more on the current situation, see news from Dhaka Tribune.

At the same time, given the current developments, the Ministry of External Affairs of India has strictly advised Indian citizens to avoid travelling to Bangladesh until further notice and to exercise extreme caution, if already there. Indian citizens are encouraged to limit their movement and stay in touch with the emergency phone numbers of the Indian High Commission in Dhaka +8801958383679, +8801958383680, and +8801937400591.

Finally, we reviewed the page that shared the photo and discovered that it has 50000 followers.