Cheap tiny houses from Tesla? They're not real. (Image: Facebook, Easy Recipes)
About a year ago, a picture went viral in Europey that allegedly showed a botched pizza party at a Green party conference (SWR). At that time, many users fell for the AI image that showed a false circumstance.
The same thing is happening in the USA right now – on a large scale. That reports 404 Media.
This is what happened: In North America, AI images are flooding Facebook and other social networks that hype Elon Musk as the savior of the USA. The whole campaign started before the US presidential election and has continued unabated since then.
This is what an AI image with fake news looks like. (Image: 404 Media)
Translation of the post
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If successful, this affordable housing option could be more than just a way to cut costs – it could represent a bold new approach to one of America's most pressing challenges: affordable housing. As real estate prices rise and wages stagnate, the dream of owning a home is becoming a distant dream for many. Musk's plan for these accessible homes proposes a fundamental shift that makes homeownership achievable for first-time buyers and those facing financial hurdles.
The post above had almost 2,000 comments5,800 likes and was shared almost 500 times – reaching a huge number of people. He has now disappeared from the profile, but there are still tons of similar posts there.
According to 404 Media, statements like:
- »Elon Musk, you are the lifesaver of millions of people.«
- “This man makes it possible for us to no longer have homeless people.”
- “God bless him to share his prosperity with us.”
That's why this is important: The large-scale flood of AI and the associated interactions show how gullible some people are to false information on the Internet. The amount of shared posts makes it clear how easily such AI fakes can be created en masse and shared by a large number of people who do not question the authenticity of the images or stories.
Elon Musk's AI fakes can be found almost innumerable on Facebook. (Image: Media 404)
The author of the original article writes that dozens of these images were shown to him on his Facebook page. During his research, he came across thousands of such AI fakes, all of which were linked to misinformation and fake news.
Where do the images come from? According to 404 Media's research, the majority does not come from the USA, but from the Philippines, Vietnam and India. From there, the pictures were and are posted en masse on Facebook.
What do the uploaders expect from this? The source speculates that it's all about making money and taking advantage of Facebook's Creator Bonus program, which returns a portion of advertising revenue to the creator when the content is interacted with.
An example is the Facebook account »American Spotlight«. It claims to be a news site from Las Vegas, but the owner actually lives in Vietnam. The site contains false posts about Elon Musk, fake news or posts that promise content that doesn't even exist.
The content doesn't shy away from absurdity. A Tesla-Handy Seems realistic compared to the following post.
A “Teslla” UFO? Some people fall for such a fake. (Image: 404 Media)
Political agenda is secondary for the AI spammerswrites 404 Media. Pro-Elon Musk content is “meta” and affects a broad mass – whether users agree with the content or not, they interact with it and that is the crux of the matter for the creators.
However, it doesn't stop at posts. New are videos that coexist with AI spam. 404 Media refers to a FacebookReel with almost 288,000 views, over 14,000 likes and 6,500 comments. The short video claims that Musk wants to send a million people to Mars in the next 20 years.
Is Meta doing something about AI spam? Not according to the author, who sent a request for comment to the company. On the contrary: In another article by 404 Media the site reports that AI-generated content in particular increases the time spent on Facebook and Instagram. In fact, the author assumes that Meta will probably turn a blind eye because the company benefits from it.
Other platforms also have the problem with AI content and fake news. TikTok (Bytedance), Threads (Meta) and also YouTube (Alphabet) are affected by the flood. The video has almost 44,000 views; the uploader's channel has 148,000 followers.
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