(Trends Wide) — Several verified Twitter accounts on Monday shared a fake image purporting to show an explosion near the Pentagon, causing confusion and causing a brief stock market crash. Local authorities later confirmed that no such incident had occurred.
The image, which has all the hallmarks of being generated by artificial intelligence, was shared by numerous verified accounts with blue checkmarks, including one that falsely claimed it was associated with Bloomberg News.
“Large explosion near the Pentagon complex in Washington. Preliminary report,” the account posted, along with an image that purportedly showed black smoke rising near a large building.
The account was suspended by Twitter. It is unknown who was behind the account or where the image came from.
Under the direction of its owner, Elon Musk, Twitter allows any user to obtain 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.
Fake news about 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 in its broadcast and citing reports by Russian news outlet RT. He later retracted it when it became clear that the incident had not taken place.
Several verified Twitter accounts on Monday shared a fake image purporting to show an explosion near the Pentagon, causing confusion and causing a brief stock market crash. Local authorities later confirmed that no such incident had occurred. Fake image generated by artificial intelligence/Twitter
“Republic broke the news of a possible explosion near the Pentagon citing a post and photo tweeted by RT,” the outlet later posted on its Twitter account. “RT has deleted the post and Republic withdrew the news.”
Trends Wide has contacted RT, Bloomberg and Twitter for comment.
In the moments after the image began circulating on Twitter, the US stock market suffered a notable drop. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell about 80 points between 10:06 and 10:10 a.m., making a full recovery at 10:13 a.m. Similarly, the broader S&P 500 went from up 0.02% at 10:06 a.m. to down 0.15% at 10:09 a.m. At 10:11, the index was back in the positive.
The building in the image does not look much like the Pentagon and, according to experts, shows signs that it may have been created using AI.
“This image shows typical signs of being synthesized by AI: there are structural errors in the building and the fence that would not be seen if, for example, someone were to add smoke to an existing photo,” Hany Farid, a professor at the University, told Trends Wide. from California at Berkeley and an expert in digital forensics.
The Arlington, Virginia, fire department later responded in a tweet, stating that both 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 are no immediate dangers or risks to the public.”
Trends Wide’s David Goldman contributed to this report.
