US candidate Kamala Harris’s rally crowd photos not altered with AI
James McManagan
August 12, 2024
WHAT WAS CLAIMED
US presidential candidate Kamala Harris’s team manipulated images to make it appear as if a large crowd attended her Michigan rally.
OUR VERDICT
False. Multiple images and video from the event show the crowd.
AAP FACTCHECK – US Vice President Kamala Harris’s team used AI technology to make the crowd in photos from her recent Michigan rally look larger, social media users claim.
This is false. Multiple news outlets published photos and videos showing that thousands of people attended the rally in a Detroit airport hangar on August 7.
The claim appears in several Facebook posts featuring images from the Democratic candidate’s campaign event.
“Democrats using AI to make fake images of supporters,” one post said.
Another post claimed that “Kamala Harris’s campaign has been officially caught red-handed using an AI fake crowd photo”.
Many claims compared two images: the first was a photo posted on X, formerly Twitter, by Harris’s staffer showing thousands gathered at the rally.
The more distant shot uploaded to X by a member of Harris’s staff.
The second was a zoomed-in image of the reflection on the aircraft’s engine, which posts claimed as evidence that there was no crowd.
The zoom-in was from an EPA news agency photo showing Ms Harris and running mate Tim Walz emerging from the aircraft.
News organisations in attendance published dozens of stories, photos and videos showing the crowd size was consistent with the one in the image Mr Harris’s staffer posted on X.
An AFP photo showed large crowds inside and outside the hangar, as did a Reuters photo.
US broadcasters Fox and PBS also aired footage of the large crowd.
Getty Images photographer Andrew Harnik, who shot the event, said it was likely the crowd couldn’t be seen in the plane engine’s reflection because they were further apart than they appeared, the Daily Beast reported.
Professor Hany Farid, an image analysis expert from the University of California, Berkeley’s GetReal Labs, examined the photo using two models that detect patterns associated with AI.
Prof Farid wrote in a LinkedIn post that the models didn’t suggest AI was used to alter the photos.
Ms Harris’s Republican rival, former US president Donald Trump, also made the claim in a post on his Truth Social platform that featured a screenshot of both photos.
“Has anyone noticed that Kamala CHEATED at the airport? There was nobody at the plane, and she “A.I.’d” it,” Trump wrote. (AAP)
